Brad Nelson
Administrator
עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
Posts: 12,261
|
Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 16, 2019 16:32:12 GMT -8
One astonishing element of "The Indian Doctor" is that a union boss (of the coal mines, in this case) is portrayed as corrupt and uncaring of his men.
|
|
|
|
Post by kungfuzu on Sept 16, 2019 17:49:10 GMT -8
It could be worse, he could have been portrayed as that scoundrel Manny Shinwell, who led the nationalization of the British coal mines and appears to have given secret government information to the Irgun. At least, he figured out that the U.K. should stay out of the EEC and opposed his Labour buddies in that venture.
|
|
Brad Nelson
Administrator
עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
Posts: 12,261
|
Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 17, 2019 7:10:48 GMT -8
I finished the fifth and final episode of season one of “The Indian Doctor.” It wasn’t bad for what it was. It had two outstanding characters in it. One was the coal worker leader (a socialist! Weeeee!) who drank and gambled away a good portion of the union funds. He was being blackmailed by the union boss to find a diary of the previous doctor that contained incriminating information about the slipshod (if not downright illegal) practices of the union boss. The other good character was the definitely Welsh-looking wife of a man dying from lung problems from working in the mine. There’s also the girl who works as Doc Sharma’s receptionist/Girl-Friday. She gets involved with a pouty, nasty lad who wants to be a singer. He doesn’t obviously have the voice for it, at least what I heard. She's believable but he is strictly one-dimensional and thus dull. The singing yute, like many of the others, seems plucked right out of Doc Martin: They’re over-the-top quirky. The worst of that lot is the wife of the corrupt union boss, Sylvia Sharpe, played by Beth Roberts. She’s a hoot and clearly a sort of Welsh Dickensian character. Maybe there are people like this. I don’t know. But she’s a handful. Maybe this show is written by socialists because there’s not enough sentimentality in it. One of the unrealized aspects is why the Sharmas stay in the village and even make it to season two. There are some pre-fabricated scenes between Mrs. Sharma and the troubled son of the socialist coal worker leader. She takes him under her wing. Why? Because she had lost a child? This is where the series is weak. They don’t eek out these fine-grained points. Her involvement in the child belies her distaste for the entire village. This relationship is entirely fabricated (even in regards to fiction). But the actor who plays the child does a splendid job of it. Dr. Sharma's wife, although stunning in her red dress, is not well cast. This is, at least, not an overly-idealized version of small-town life. The town is full of malicious, gossip-spreading women. The men — coal miners — are quick to act like a mob. They easily believe whatever rubbish they are told. This is certainly believable, but the point being that at the end of season one, you wouldn’t necessarily want to live in this village. That is not the case with a series like “Doc Martin” which has caused a huge tourist influx to its various filming locations. I’ve watched just a couple opening minutes of season two. And it’s clear that they are introducing new characters. I’ll see where this goes. As for the good doctor himself, he’s no more boring than Marcus Welby, M.D. He’s played with a gentle realism by Sanjeev Bhaskar. It’s a little different to have an Indian as a lead character. But the feeling is that he’s a real person, not a token virtue-signaling element of multiculturalism. Had that not been the case, I wouldn’t have given this series five minutes. |
|
|
|
Post by timothylane on Sept 17, 2019 7:42:33 GMT -8
I gather that the Welsh are known for their singing ability. As it happens, both Shirley Bassey and Petula Clark have a good bit of Welsh in them.
|
|
Brad Nelson
Administrator
עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
Posts: 12,261
|
Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 17, 2019 8:32:48 GMT -8
Here’s someone’s list of Famous Welsh Actors. But “famous” is not the same as “good.” Any great list starts and ends with Richard Burton. Other notables according to this list are: Anthony Hopkins, Ray Miland, Siân Phillips, Desmond Llewelyn, and John Rhys-Davies. I had no idea Humphrey Bogart was Welsh. I’ll take that list with a grain of salt. Christian Bale is on there. He’s an okay actor for certain things. But I don’t put him on any list. The same with Jonathan Price. He’s good in some things. At least this list isn’t confused about #1. Ranker’s list of Welsh singers is headed by Tom Jones. Shirley Bassey is #12 behind a bunch of nobodies. They don’t have Petula Clark on the list. He mother had some Welsh in her. I don’t know how much. Her father was English. I’m guessing that not many people identify her as Welsh. And probably properly so. She seems 100% English to me. But aparently she learned to speak Welsh and her grandfather was a coal miner. Then we get to The 50 Greatest Welsh Songs of All Time. I’ll start with #1 and see if I’ve heard of any of these. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. I recognize “Goldfinger” at #7. But is the song really Welsh? This list may be a little mixed up. Let’s try 8 Welsh Songs So Achingly Beautiful They’ll Make You Cry. I’m not quite crying over Gwahoddiad. It’s okay. It sounds like the kind of music that would fade-in at the end of “The Grapes of Wrath.” Nice. But I’m not crying. #2 is Suo Gân. Hard to tell from this video. No crying, as such, yet. Why Spielberg has a bunch of Japanese singing this is anyone’s guess. One could cry over that, I guess. Let’s move on to the easy-to-pronounce “Myfanway. No tears yet. This is a little weighed-down of a song. Still looking for tears. Let’s see if #4, “Cwm Rhondda” has a least a little Beach Boys in it. And even though the production values of this song are minimal — it’s just a phone video of some guy singing in a pub — this by far showcases the song better than any of the over-produced ones higher on the list. I’m not crying, but this is a beautiful song indeed. #5. Meh. Maybe I’ve lost the ability to cry. But “Danny Boy” this is not. #6 has a hot chick singing “I Bob Un Sy’n Ffyddlon.” A very nice, and typically Welsh, tune. No crying. Maybe a bit of lusting. Over a gospel tune, that’s probably a no-no. That’s enough of that for now. But I will leave you with a song that always gets me right there. |
|
|
|
Post by timothylane on Sept 17, 2019 8:57:44 GMT -8
Interesting lists. It might be interesting to check out some of the movie to find out what role the actor was in (particularly the second list). O'Toole's costar in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (parodied by Danny Kaye on his show as "Good Spy, Mr. Chips") was Petula Clark; what role did Sian Phillips have? I know here mainly from her similar roles as Livia Augusta in I, Claudius and the Reverend Mother in Dune. Hugh Griffiths hardly had a starring role in Oliver! -- he was a drunken magistrate, and it was a minor role. I find myself wondering about some of those Anthony Hopkins roles before what I consider his big role in Magic (which the article didn't include).
|
|
Brad Nelson
Administrator
עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
Posts: 12,261
|
Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 17, 2019 9:07:55 GMT -8
Siân Phillips is notable for Dune and I, Clavdivs, as you mentioned. Her IMDB list also notes appearances in:
• The Longest Day (uncredited)
• Becket (Gwendolen)
• Goodbye, Mr. Chips (Ursula Mossbank)
• Tinker Tailer Soldier Spy (playing Ann Smiley in at least one episode) + one episode of Smiley’s People
• Clash of the Titans (Cassiopeia)
• Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years (TV Mini-Series playing Clementine Churchill)
She also played Mr.s Upward “Mr.s McGinty’s Dead,” a 2008 production of a Poirot series. She has three works listed as in post-production. She is still apparently going strong. She’s not a household name. But she’s a great actress.
I don't think I've seen "Magic." It also stars Ann Margrock.
|
|
|
|
Post by timothylane on Sept 17, 2019 9:22:06 GMT -8
I guess that would be a significant role in Clash of the Titans, but at the time I wouldn't have noticed her. The movie was most famous for the robot owl, which a friend called "Owl 2D2". Magic also features Burgess Meredith as well as Anthony Hopkins, Hopkins's alter ego, and Ann-Margret.
|
|
Brad Nelson
Administrator
עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
Posts: 12,261
|
Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 17, 2019 10:27:53 GMT -8
In episode one of season two of “The Indian Doctor,” it’s amusing to see the new reverend refuse a request by the single mother to have her child baptized. The reverend tells her “As soon as you and the father are married.” He sees permissiveness as a growing problem. Someone reminds him that Jesus was for mercy and forgiveness.
Given the holocaust of abortions and the social anarchy and harm of children without a father in the home, I’m not sure that Jesus would have been reflexively liberal about this. Christianity is awash in permissiveness. But they take no responsibility for the harm they help lubricate.
Some of the plots in the opening episode are trite. There’s this one fellow (the constable) who is begging the doctor for advice in asking a woman out in a poor remake of Cyrano de Bergerac. In another, the child of the union drunkard is sick (likely smallpox). The child, of course — even while suffering deathly chills — gets out of the warm bed in the doctor's house and takes refuge in a little camp he’s set up in a disused coal mine some miles off (by foot, I guess). Why? Don’t ask. It’s just a stupid plot point.
In the first season, even if this wasn’t quite Shakespeare, there was a general shtick that they had about the Indian doctor being the fish out of water in a Welsh village as well the the local community thinking of his as some dirt-poor Hindu from a dung-encrusted small village. But in this second season, they’ve dispensed with all that and it’s truly turned into a bad imitation of “Doc Martin’— a show that (for me) was watchable only for about 2 or 3 seasons as it was because if its inability to do much more than repeat itself.
Oh, and speaking of lame stereotypes, the reverend’s daughter is a slut. While her father is giving a slide show about his recent mission to Africa, she’s sitting in the back making eyes at the married man a few rows over. They both sneak out and eventually are kissing. The overly-strict man-of-the-cloth produces a slutty, rebellious daughter. Maybe this is how the world works, but it feels like extremely lazy writing.
I’m not hopeful about this second season.
|
|
|
|
Post by timothylane on Sept 17, 2019 10:50:28 GMT -8
I noticed that you had a circumflex above the "a" in Sian. How did you do that? I recall trying it (actually, I think it may have been an umlaut) by the way that worked on ST (and works on Disqus), and it didn't work.
|
|
|
|
Post by kungfuzu on Sept 17, 2019 11:27:51 GMT -8
Notice what Jesus said to the adulteress. The last sentence is what is always left out when phony Christians and atheists start using Jesus to excuse immorality. Lies of omission are very common among the dishonest.
|
|
|
|
Post by timothylane on Sept 17, 2019 11:49:00 GMT -8
Mark Rogers did a 3-volume allegory of Jesus Christ, Blood of the Lamb, set in a fantasy alternate world (the equivalent of Satan was Chernobog, in our world a demon out of medieval Russian folklore whose name means "Black God" -- hence my use of that sobriquet for Barry Zero).
He includes that incident, and takes it a step further. After the Christ figure says "Go, and sin no more," the woman comes on to him in gratitude. Irked, he angrily emphasizes, "Woman, go and sin no more!"
Isaac Asimov used it in a different context in Caves of Steel. Some people do remember that last line.
|
|
Brad Nelson
Administrator
עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
Posts: 12,261
|
Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 18, 2019 7:18:29 GMT -8
To the best of my knowledge, the incident of the attempted stoning of the adulteress was meant as a trap for Jesus. We don’t get Jesus’ opinion on stoning for adultery. And given that suffering and death is a feature built into existence, it’s doubtful that the Creator is particularly squeamish about the death penalty. And it’s reasonable to assume that the omniscient God of the universe understands something that neither Parkland school administrators nor the California governor understand: If there are a known lack of consequences, you will help to engender the worst in people. You will thereby also not only put innocent people at risk, but by eliminating penalties you are removing the implicit reward for people who are playing by the rules and showing good conduct: California’s Ban on School Suspensions Invites Another ParklandThat’s the same essential problem with “universal salvation.” For holding such views, it might be exceedingly flattering to oneself, “tolerance” being all the rage these days. But there’s a fair bet that God knows better than Leftists about how best to manage human behavior. Had that lady sinned again, we do not know that Jesus himself wouldn’t be throwing the first stone. There are other lessons to be learned from that, such as mercy, second chances, and perhaps even the penalty fitting the crime. But if the message taken from the incident is to dispense with penalties then it is a very rough world one is helping to foment. But if self-flattery is all that matters, then by all means, use other people’s misfortunes as an avenue for self-aggrandizement. And likely in this century Jesus would be there to warn people about virtue signaling. Maybe something like “Let he who is without a Facebook account signal the first virtues.” Or whatever. |
|
Brad Nelson
Administrator
עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
Posts: 12,261
|
Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 18, 2019 7:49:19 GMT -8
I finished the second season (five more episodes) of “The Indian Doctor.” The first season was better. The second season is a hackneyed story about an outbreak of smallpox in the small Welsh village.
One problem is that there is no justification for the villagers not wanting to take the vaccine. They try to wedge in a “faith-vs-science” thread whereby the new preacher is relying on faith alone. But he has but a small congregation. It doesn’t explain why the villagers — even with people sick and dying all around them — won’t get vaccinated.
The production values of the show are good: Good acting (for what it is), good lighting, good direction, good editing, good cinematography. These are all quality. But the script is retarded. And I don’t mean that in any pejorative sense. I mean it like “The oak seedling’s growth was retarded by the full-grown pine tree.”
Without a doubt, there is on display a retarded ability to tell stories in a way that shows some depth. This had to have been written by one of the “gold star” legions who got praise just for showing up. All the elements are in place to do a good story. But we get a dull and amateurish one.
For example, the reverend exposed himself to the virus in order to stay by the bedside of the young lad who first came down with it. He was in isolation while they waited for the vaccine. This somehow so touched the angry, drunken, corrupt, atheist-socialist father that he agreed to be baptized by the reverend.
This sounds like it should be a triumphal moment. But it comes off as totally unbelievable. No depth of feeling or thought is explored when this drunken union atheist socialist man converts. It just happens like flipping a switch. And for the viewer, the clear answer regarding this conversion is because the writers don’t have the ability to have subtle thoughts or emotions, their thinking process having itself been corrupted by crude stereotypes or religion.
So we have on display plenty of humans. But what is missing is the human element, especially in this second season. Now, granted, these types of dramas are playing to the degraded tastes of British audiences. And in the “science-vs-religion” hackneyed plot, that science came out on top is probably all that it takes to satisfy the rabble.
They could have inserted real reasons why people were afraid of taking the vaccine. They didn’t. And there are real reasons. Although one is overwhelmingly better off gambling on vaccines, some people do die from them or suffer greatly from them. We are supposed to assume that this group of Welsh yokels is so unsophisticated that it’s like they’ve never even heard of the idea of a vaccine. But the retarded writers don’t explore this.
And it could be that there is more to existence than just a body, that maybe a good preacher has a place in a small community. But we only every get a retarded, hackneyed script from the denuded writers. And that, again, is a shame because all of the elements for something much better had been assembled. The opportunity was simply lost.
|
|
Brad Nelson
Administrator
עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
Posts: 12,261
|
Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 18, 2019 8:34:34 GMT -8
What would that adulteress’s life have been like if she knew there was never a penalty for her behavior? Well, we’ve run that experiment: 77% of black births are to single mothers. 49% for Hispanic. 30% for white. Another site makes an interesting point about the use of the word, “basterd”: Having all but done away with the idea of shame and stigma (except for using plastic straws), we are not evolving to utopia. We are doing just the opposite. Society is getting meaner and meaner. We are doing more harm to children, not less. |
|
|
|
Post by kungfuzu on Sept 18, 2019 8:42:09 GMT -8
Following on the theme of bastards, I just saw the following article about the decline of abortions in the USA.
What does it say about our society that we are happy that there are only 800,000+ abortions in a year?
|
|
|
|
Post by kungfuzu on Sept 18, 2019 9:05:28 GMT -8
Here is something I wrote 3 years ago.
Some Hard Truths or Bye Bye America Wed, 31 Aug 2016 12:19:25, Kung Fu Zu,
by Kung Fu Zu 8/31/16
I would like to give you, dear reader, some revealing statistics which bear directly upon the future of the United States of America.
Illegitimacy Rates in the U.S.A. for the year 2014: All races: 40.2%
White: 35.7% All 29.2% Non-Hispanic
Black: 70.4% All 70.9% Non-Hispanic
Amerindian: 65.7%
Asian/P. Islander: 16.4%
Hispanic: 52.9%
1,604,870 illegitimate children were born in the U.S.A. in the year 2014. Let that sink in.
(The above numbers are from the “National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 64, No. 12, December 23, 2015”)
Now let me give you some historical numbers on illegitimacy rates in the U.S.A. from the Department of Labor:
White
1940-2% 1963-3.07%
Black
1940-16.8% 1963-23.6%
The contrast is pretty startling isn’t it?
More recently, in 1980, the illegitimacy rate in the U.S.A. was 18.4%. It continued increasing to 41% in 2009, and has decreased slightly each year thereafter. Now it is only 40.2%, as noted above.
Let’s look at this from another viewpoint.
In 1980 there were 29.4 illegitimate births per 1000 women in the U.S.A. In 2014, this number was 43.9. That is an almost 50% increase.
If these numbers do not send a chill up your back, then you must be comatose or a libertarian.
Over the last 36 years alone, this country has churned out something like 40 million babies without fathers at home. Can a country long last which has as one of its biggest product bastards? And here’s a thought which might make one despair. What would these numbers be if abortion had not been legal? Talk about a lose/lose situation.
All other problems facing this country are picayune when compared to this one. The costs, and here I do not mean only monetary, are simply too great to bear over an extended period of time without debasing the whole society. Will either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton try to address this fundamental problem in America? I think not. More importantly, will Americans as a whole do anything to address this shame? Given the statistics, I believe the answer to that question was given long ago. It is a resounding “No!”
With all the attendant problems which arise out of illegitimacy, can anyone deny that the above numbers are evidence of a tremendous ethical, moral and educational scandal? To my mind, this has been and continues to be the biggest threat facing America. Since it does not appear that we have the will to call it what it is, much less do anything to correct the problem, I think the end of that late great place called the United States of America cannot be far off. It was good while it lasted. Bye, bye.
|
|
|
|
Post by timothylane on Sept 18, 2019 10:00:01 GMT -8
Vaccination has existed for over 200 years, ever since Edward Jenner discovered that cowpox could immunize people against smallpox. Before that there was variolation, a form of inoculation designed to give someone a mild case of smallpox to prevent worse. (One early American advocate was Cotton Mather, usually better known for other, far worse reasons.) The risk was that the induced case might not be mild, but it worked better than doing nothing. The Continental Army was inoculated at one point.
Ironically, today we see anti-vaccinators (the word having long transcended its originally meeting, which comes from the term vaccina for cowpox and the virus causing it) not among primitive farmers (at least in the West), but among suspicious elites. They've been brought up to distrust everything the Behemoth says and does, so when some paranoia-inducing anti-vaccinator comes up with an invalid link to autism and the authorities point out its errors, they reflexively believe the skeptics.
|
|
|
|
Post by timothylane on Sept 18, 2019 10:05:22 GMT -8
As a friend said a few decades back, call a black a bastard and you're probably right.
As for abortion, one factor leading to the decline is no doubt the increasing use of ultrasound to look at unborn babies. Apparently this leads a lot of woman to realize that a fetus really is an unborn baby, and thus makes them more reluctant to get an abortion. (One wonders how many abortions actually result from pressure from boyfriends -- a point noted, interestingly, in an early sequence in Airplane! involving a tense exchange between a male and a female PA announcer.)
|
|
Brad Nelson
Administrator
עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
Posts: 12,261
|
Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 18, 2019 13:35:51 GMT -8
For a while, we’re going to continue to try defining deviancy down. If nothing is bad, no one has to do anything about it. Very convenient.
That obvious trap stupid that many whites have fallen into is white guilt. It prevents them from having to implement any kind of objective morality (don’t steal, for example) against “people of color.” Obama’s racial policies have been disastrous. Liberal beliefs and policies do nothing but sweep the problem under the rug by declaring there is no dirt to begin with.
Anyway, back to “The Indian Doctor.” One of my beefs could be of the rope-a-dope variety. They write stupid shit into these things intentionally just to get people riled. I’m sure of it. That’s a common practice for stupid stuff you see on TV that you know they’re just baiting you with.
There’s this one dark-haired very Welsh-looking woman who was splendid in season one. She lost her husband to a lung disease caused by the coal dust. She was obviously lonely and was initially somewhat attracted by our good Indian doctor — if only as a friend.
Exploding out of nowhere, they both were pinion for each other. But it went nowhere. The local constable started courting her. She brushed him off. Then when the doctor made clear that he wasn’t going to fool around on his wife, she did accept the constable’s proposal. And now she’s in full “I’m not happy with my choices” mode.
I mean, I’m sorry, but if you didn’t want to be with this guy then don’t marry him. He really loves her. But all this c-word can do is pine for what she can’t have instead of making the best of what she does have. I’d love to be sitting around with a bunch of chicks and hear what they think about this because I’m quite sure this is written for them, not me. I just want the constable to hit her over the head with his truncheon and move on.
|
|
