February 21, 2026 · 5:18 am

The wandering shadow of Valentine’s Day: movies

LOVERS AND OTHER STRANGERS (1970) is a favorite rom-com of mine that I always think of watching on Valentine’s Day, but usually too late to actually do it. This year, I made it.

This is based on a stage play collecting several different one-scene skits. Here, however, they’re woven into a coherent hole as everyone’s related to everyone else, all gathered together for the wedding of Mike and Susan (Michael Brandon, Bonnie Bedelia). Her father (Gig Young, excellent in the role) is cheating on her mom (Cloris Leachman) with Susan’s aunt (Anne Jackson); her sister Wilma (Anne Meara) is getting sexually frustrated with her husband (Harry Guardino); Michael’s brother Richie (Joseph Hindy) is divorcing his wife Joan (Diane Keaton) and their parents (Richard Castellano, Bea Arthur) can’t understand it — so the marriage didn’t work out, you can’t end it just like that!!

The film shows it’s age in some ways. It’s an era when no-fault divorce was new (and divorce itself was still a touchy subject — though America has always been a divorce nation) and living together was a sin; when TYG and watched it a decade ago, she didn’t pick up that Mike’s male roommate was a lie he’d made up to hide that Susan was his roommate.

The emotional core, however, holds up well. Young’s slick dodging over commitment. Castellano and Arthur expressing their sad view of marriage. Michael listening to their stories about other bad marriages who didn’t divorce and finally exploding (“I don’t want someone telling a horrible story about us that ends with ‘but they’re still together.”). Overall it’s a charmer. “If you let ten years of love end in a bathroom, I’ll lose all respect for myself.”

Returning to that Christmas gift collection of Fritz Lang films — THE WANDERING SHADOW (1920) has a woman fleeing into the mountains to escape a vengeful pursuer. We eventually learn this is the outcome of an insanely melodramatic backstory involving free love, a fake marriage, an inheritance and more. Overwrought though it is, it looks and watches way better than Harakiri (reviewed at the link), whether that’s Lang learning on the job or just being more at home with German material. “For your support and assistance I am eternally in your debt, but I must carry my cross alone.”

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February 20, 2026 · 4:35 pm

I foresaw the dogs would eat my homework at some point this year

I did not think it would be quite this soon.

Sunday: Plush began pooping in the house. Very runny, too. We gave him some drugs — we’ve accumulated quite a few from past problems of one sort or another (and yes, we throw away the expired ones) and hoped that would be enough. Monday he was still runny and very listless at his PT session (he’s waiting in their lobby in the photo above, taken late last year). Oh, and Trixie threw up lavishly on the bed. She was fine and lively at PT, but kept throwing up and refused to eat. She’s had bad tummies before but as it continued, TYG finally decided she needed a doctor visit (this was the correct move). It was late by this point so we had to hit the emergency. Times past, we’d have driven like a half-hour; recently we discovered Blue Pearl, an emergency vet maybe 10 minutes a way. The doctor was great and I came home with a bunch more drugs for Trixie.

Unfortunately the next day she had a very ugly looking, repeated diarrhea. So first I took her to our regular vet, then we got an ultrasound at Blue Pearl … in Raleigh, so TYG drove a good half hour there and back … and then there and back to collect her.

Wednesday things had improved slightly. More appetite, both dogs; diarrhea constant but smaller; both dogs their usual perky self. Still it was stressful, we’d spent three nights getting to bed late (TYG was out late Sunday so I stayed up late too), and I was half-sleepwalking. Plus the drugs take a lot of time to get into the dogs.

Thursday, we could see veterinary medicine had done its work. Both dogs happier, both hungry for more food and treats than we wanted to risk giving them, digestive problems minor. Still a lot of drugs. Oh, and now that Trixie has her heavy coat shorn, she’s much more comfortable snuggling in my lap.

The end result for my writing? Almost nothing done. I was kicking myself, then I remembered I took that into account in mapping out my goals for this year. Time off for a vacation, time for proofing Watching Jekyll and Hyde, time for something to go wrong. So this week fits in. Admittedly I’d have liked it better if I’d gotten a couple more months of good work first, but over the course of 2026, it shouldn’t throw me off my game.

I did get a little work done on The Impossible Takes a Little Longer. Most of my time, though, went to Local Reporter, with stories on a delayed Chapel Hill road project, public opinion on how Chapel Hill should spend its budget surplus, FEMA reimbursement in Carrboro and the area’s Destination 2055 transportation plan. At Atomic Junk Shop I looked at the option of seeing across time, the mess that’s Son of Dr. Jekyll, and the paradox of Earth-One comic books.

Still, here’s hoping next week plays out better.

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February 20, 2026 · 5:15 am

Dog photos

Dudley and Trixie

And then Trixie and Dudley!

Now here’s Trixie after her first visit to our new groomer.

Eliotte’s Pet Spa. They do good work.

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February 19, 2026 · 5:04 am

Strange, someone just informed me Republicans don’t hate women

In a discussion on my congresswoman’s (Valerie Foushee) Facebook page, I pointed out that as written, the new Stop People Voting Act (not quite titled that way) would appear to disqualify women from voting if they changed their name when they married. Which would fit in with their long hatred of women’s suffrage.

An outraged Repub voter informed me that his party certainly doesn’t hate women, they’re just trying to prevent voter fraud, etc., etc. He is either lying or ignorant because yes, a lot of people on his side are misogynists and the rest of them don’t have any strong objections.

Take, for example, right-wing propagandist Nick Fuentes: “Women get sent to the gulags first, obviously. Which women? All women. Every woman. Every woman and girl is sent to the gulags. We will determine who the good ones are after the fact. Well, what about the good ones? What about the trad ones? First of all, there are no trad ones or good ones. Second of all, we will determine which ones are acceptable after they’re all imprisoned. Then we will let them out … Our number one political enemy is women because women constrain everything, every conversation, every man, everything. They have to be imprisoned.”

Fuentes is extreme but as I’ve said before the policy is no enemies on the right — being a misogynist shit is acceptable in an ally because Fuentes is willing to punch down at the same enemy — uppity, insubordinate women — as the rest of them.

Elon Musk is a raging racist but he also agrees with an X post that ““It breaks my heart to say but in order to save this country we are probably going to have to do things that make women sad :(.” I guarantee whoever posted that ain’t suffering heartbreak at the thought. Nor are the many right-wingers promoting young women getting married early and never aspiring beyond housewifery breaking their hearts at the thought of rolling back decades of women’s freedom. It’s built into the successors to Project 2025.

Even devoutly right-wing women like Dana Loesch aren’t safe from misogynist bullshit. Which she shouldn’t suffer any more than women whose views I respect. But it’s a reminder than Fuentes isn’t the only one determined to see all women in chains.

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February 18, 2026 · 5:15 am

No, zero to hero is not the universal theme of all fiction

In a recent substack post, Celeste Davis of Matriarchal Blessing discussed the many rich and famous guys who’ve gone from pudgy and nerdy looking to buff and muscular, including Jeff Bezos and Christ Pratt. I don’t find this terribly remarkable — while the pressure on men to look good isn’t as intense as with women, it does exist. In our modern world I don’t think it’s that far off from someone forty years ago getting rich and switching to bespoke suits.

Davis argues that what this is really about is becoming invulnerable: “The invulnerability arc shows up in just about every myth, story and hero we have for boys—be they modern or ancient, religious or secular. The story goes like this: once upon a time there was a weak, shrimpy boy, who eventually through pain and violence is transformed into a fortress of muscle and power. Now no one makes fun of him. Now he is a hero.” Cases in point, Disney’s Hercules, Harry Potter, Batman, Captain America. Davis goes on to argue that if your goal is a long, healthy life (and for a lot of these dudes, it is), becoming buff or paying for radical medical treatments won’t work as well as having a community of friends around you.

That conclusion I do not dispute. Davis’ interpretation of the “invulnerability arc” as the essential Boy’s Journey … not so much. Since she brings up the Marvel and DC cinematic universes, let’s look:

Iron Man: Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr. of course) discovers his munitions manufacturing has made the world worse. Sets out to atone. And far from being invulnerable, he starts the movie in good health, then ends up a guy relying on the world’s most advanced pacemaker. The comic book doesn’t start Tony out in such a guilty place, but does emphasize even more that he’s not invulnerable —drain his armor’s power, he’s dead. Jack Kirby cover below.

Superman: No arc. He’s an invulnerable child who grows up into the world’s most invulnerable man.

Thor: Arrogant jackass whose arc is learning not to be such a jerk.

Captain America: (Steve Rogers in the Jack Kirby scene above is saving a Cap imposter, by the way). No question his origin involves going from a scrawny 4-F into the perfect man. But I think it’s more significant that his quest isn’t to become strong, it’s to fight fascists. That’s why he applies in the comics (and IIRC in the film). That’s what drives him. And it’s not that he’s invulnerable —

— it’s his indomitable spirit, as in the Gene Colan image above.

Hercules? Disney’s take is an outlier, portraying him as a wimpy kid; in mythology, Hercules strangles venomous snakes while he’s still in the cradle. Marvel’s Hercules (at the bottom of Kirby’s cover) and most other pop-culture presentations are much the same — superhuman from the get-go.

Harry Potter is far and away the worst argument for her position. Her synopsis: “A shrimpy nerdy orphan is shunned by his family, forced to live in the hall closet and be beat up by his cousin. Eventually he fights in some battles and after securing The Deathly Hallows, becomes the master of death and savior of the world.”

Okay, that’s technically true, but only technically. The real story is a miserable lonely good gets away from his abusive caregivers, make friends, finds a parental figure who isn’t shitty and learns to be happy. The books are an endorsement of exactly what Davis says we need, community. Harry wouldn’t have made it to book two if he didn’t have Ron and Hermione (particularly, of course, Hermione) fighting alongside him. He wouldn’t have finished the series alive if he hadn’t trained his fellow students into Dumbledore’s Army.

Harry is all about community. In a sense that’s what makes him the perfect opposing player for Voldemort, who has no use for other people except as pawns or followers.

Likewise, few superheroes these days come without a supporting cast. Green Arrow and Flash on the CW have sizable backup teams, for instance. Movie Batman is probably the closest to what Davis talks about; I think he’s more an anomaly than a template.

Looking at pop culture more broadly, I think the post underestimates the number of characters who don’t have origins in a conventional sense. In cop shows we may get some backstory but a lot of the time they’re simply there, no origin. Jack Bauer on 24 ditto — his childhood and how he came to be a tough guy is never detailed that I recall.

In short, I don’t think the post nailed the zeitgeist as much as she thinks.

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February 17, 2026 · 12:15 pm

Republicans, the anti-science party

“We should be living in a golden age of scientific solutions to once-unsolvable problems. And, arguably, we are,” Adam Lee writes on OnlySky. However “Against a global backdrop of accelerating progress, some nations are nurturing science and technology and are poised to prosper. Others are rejecting it, and as a consequence, they’re falling further and further behind. One of the nations in the latter category is the United States.”

Case in point, rescinding the EPA rule that greenhouse gas is a deadly threat (which it is): “In scrapping the policy this week, the EPA will seek to erase limits on emissions from cars, power plants and other industries that release the vast majority of the nation’s planet-warming pollution.” Unsurprisingly they’re lying about the impact of relevant regulations. As Paul Krugman says, anti-environmentalism and anti-vax have a lot of overlap.

So let’s talk vaccines, the medical technology that ended the Covid lockdowns yet is now Public Enemy Number One. As Krugman says, in both green energy and vaccines, the Toddler Administration is not only refusing to support them, it’s actively working against other people supporting them. Case in point: “Ms. Manookian is a leader of the Medical Freedom Act Coalition, a new umbrella group of at least 15 nonprofit organizations advocating an end to state laws that codify what they call medical mandates, which largely pertain to vaccines. So far, bills have been introduced in at least nine states that would eliminate all or nearly all school requirements” I’m sure he’s cool with the fact 883 of South Carolina’s measles cases are unvaccinated.

Moderna has an experimental flu vaccine. Flu kills hundreds of people every year in this country (it’s also a horrible medical experience. Got it twice). The FDA isn’t interested. “Moderna noted that the agency did not identify any specific safety or efficacy issues with the vaccine, but instead objected to the study design, despite previously approving it.”

“I’m not scared of a germ, after all I used to snort cocaine off toilet seats.” — RFK Jr. Who’s authorizing a vaccine trial that “would withhold an established, safe, and potentially lifesaving vaccine against hepatitis B from some newborns in Guinea-Bissau, Africa.”

It’s not just vaccines under siege, though: “Unlike home birth – birth at home with a midwife in attendance – freebirth means giving birth without any medical support. FBS promotes a version widely seen as extreme, even among freebirth advocates: it is anti-ultrasound, which it falsely claims harms babies, downplays serious medical conditions and promotes wild pregnancy, meaning pregnancy without any prenatal care.” The article makes it clear this is way more radical than the regular “free birth” movement that arose in response to frustration with the way ob/gyn medicine currently works. And that the Free Birth Society reels in plenty of bucks, and teeters on the thin edge of ethics, as the phrase goes (carefully positioning themselves so that they’re not legally giving medical advice, even if it sounds like it). Oh, and the FBS leaders also reject gravity and germ theory.

Then we have Sen. Ron Johnson, happily endorsing a crackplot claim you can cure autism with bleach. Or the current secretary of health who thinks the keto diet can treat schizophrenia.

How to lie with statistics.

“Health officials in New Mexico are warning against consuming raw dairy products after a newborn baby in the state died from a listeria infection that they say was likely contracted when the baby’s mother drank raw milk during pregnancy.”

RFK Jr.’s FDA claims the covid vaccine has killed 10 children. Unsurprisingly they did not provide details or evidence.

During a recent Con-Tinual panel, Seanan MacGuire, who writes epidemiological thrillers as Mira Grant, said if she’d pitched a novel a decade ago portraying so many people rejecting covid vaccines, they’d have laughed her out of the publisher’s office. I suspect it only gets worse from here.

Cover by Irwin Hassen, all rights to image remain with current holders.

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February 17, 2026 · 5:05 am

Cover reveal!

Not yet for Southern Discomfort but they’ve picked my cover for Watching Jekyll and Hyde.

This is the poster for the 1931 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde that one Fredric March an Oscar. It’s not what I suggested but it looks good — and I trust McFarland to pick the right image.

They seem to be moving quite fast on this. It may not be too long before I get the galleys to proof.

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February 16, 2026 · 5:15 am

The evil of Jeffrey Epstein and his friends is truly banal

A friend of mine made a good point on FB recently: “The most depressing thing about the Epstein files is how very very boring billionaires are. All the money that ever existed and they use it to perv on 13-year-olds. If I were a billionaire, I would commission the *HMS Surprise* with 24 guns of confetti cannons, and I would require the crew to wear Lord Nelson-era uniforms. If I wanted a second yacht, I would build the *Queen Anne’s Revenge* and have the crew dress and talk like movie pirates.”

How Karen chooses to spend her billions is not the way I’d do it but her point is still valid. These are men who could probably find willing, attractive partners; in many cases they have the income to hire adult sex workers. They can travel around the world, afford to live pretty much anywhere — Paris, Cairo, London — trek up the Amazon. Pay $50,000 to charity so Bon Jovi or Bad Bunny will give them and their friends a private concert. Or simply sit on the beach with a piña colada and a good book and chill. Instead, they opted to hang out with a notorious pedophile on Statutory Rape Island, write smirking birthday cards about how Epstein liked ’em young or tell Epstein how underage girls are slutty temptresses.

As several women have observed online, sexualizing underage girls isn’t something Epstein came up with. It’s common. Epstein’s inner ring weren’t uniquely depraved slimeballs. Rape culture is a thing and plenty of other people in the same boat would have looked at those girls and said “yummy!” That is not an excuse. That other men do what Epstein did and get away with it is not a reason to shrug and not care about him or his cronies. Nor, contrary to Attorney General Pam Bondi, should we stop worrying about the victims because the economy’s doing well (as noted at the link, not as well as she implies). Hey, at least some of Epstein’s BFFs are suffering consequences.

The web of connections around Epstein keeps spreading wider. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick for instance: “Lutnick has in the past vehemently denied having any association with Jeffrey Epstein, insisting that he severed all contact with the pedophile ringleader in 2005. But even the highly limited, extremely redacted release of the Epstein files — everything we’ve seen reeks of a major coverup — shows that he was flat-out lying. Not only did he stay in close contact with Epstein, the two men appear to have gone into business together.” Steve Bannon gave Epstein advice on rebuilding his reputation, such as “crush the pedo/trafficking narrative.” You can’t get much more morally bankrupt.

Paul Krugman: “I believe (and hope) that only a small minority of the hundreds and hundreds in Epstein’s extended circle received sexual favors. A larger number of people were probably receiving financial favors, but most weren’t … I believe that a lot of his reach came from his skill at seducing people by providing them with a sense of exclusivity and privilege. To be associated with Epstein meant receiving invitations to participate in fancy dinners or to stay at one of his many luxurious residences in all the best places, including his private island. If you were chums with Jeffrey Epstein, you felt that you were a member of a glittering set of insiders. And that was enough to make you look away when the young woman pouring your drink looked just a little bit too much like your teenage daughter.” C.S. Lewis makes the same point about the appeal of joining the cool kids: “It would be so terrible to see the other man’s face—that genial, confidential, delightfully sophisticated face—turn suddenly cold and contemptuous, to know that you had been tried for the Inner Ring and rejected.”

Or consider Valeria Chomsky’s account of her husband Noah Chomsky (yes, the Chomsky) and how Epstein charmed him: “Epstein began to encircle Noam, sending gifts and creating opportunities for interesting discussions in areas Noam has been working on extensively. We regret that we did not perceive this as a strategy to ensnare us and to try to undermine the causes Noam stands for.” That I can understand. However Chomsky sympathizing with him over the “horrible way” the media had treated Epstein — that’s getting sucked in further than I think is excusable. It’s along the lines of refusing to believe your buddy/father/kid/roommate could possibly have done what that chick says he did, regardless of the evidence.

It’s possible some of the people in Epstein’s orbit were genuinely unaware of his activities beyond rumors — I certainly hadn’t heard of him until about eight years ago. But others, as Krugman says, were willing to turn a blind eye for the chance to hang out at glamorous parties or suck up to Epstein for research funding. And some, judging from the jokes or the chatter in their emails weren’t that blind. Knowing about it or suspecting it and continuing to hang out isn’t as bad as having sex with Epsteion’s underage victims. But it’s bad enough.

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February 15, 2026 · 5:07 am

Three books about women

“Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience; but, as blind obedience is ever sought for by power, tyrants and sensualists are in the right when they endeavour to keep women in the dark, because the former only want slaves, and the latter a play-thing.” That quote from Mary Wollstonecraft (from the Matriarchal Blessing substack) convinced me to read her VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN — but in hindsight I wish I’d looked for an annotated edition. She refutes authors I’ve never heard of and I often suspected that the two centuries since she wrote have altered enough word usage I may not be getting her meaning.

The gist of Wollstonecraft’s argument is that women are not shallow ninnies obsessed with fashion, incapable of deep thought and never accomplishing anything: this is, rather, what they are trained to be. They’re told their value is their looks, told their value hinges on landing a man, they’re discouraged from thinking, cut off from education — free the mind and the rest will follow. Her comparison point is the idle rich whom she sees as engaging in the same sort of frippery and shallowness. What happens to an uneducated woman if her husband dies and she has to care for the family? What will occupy her mind once she’s an empty nester? If a relationship is purely based on looks and sex, how long can it last?

This argument hasn’t aged — lots of people today would agree with Wollstonecraft about the effects of educating women but they’d think the effects are bad. However while it hit the late 1700s like a bomb, it’s not as radical today — at 300-plus pages I found it interesting but not compelling (though if I’d never read anything on this subject before …).

SHADOW OF THE GOLDEN CRANE by Chris Roberson and Michael Avon Oeming is a spotlight on BPRD agent Susan Xiang. As she investigates various cases (most notably involving a demon-possessed biker granny) she keeps getting visions of a Chines precursor to the BPRD, the Order of the Golden Crane. Each time she flashes back, she gets a clue to how to handle the monster of the issue and learns more about the society.

I like Susan and a series focusing on her should have been fun, but this was “meh.” Like several of these bounce-through-history Hellboyverse series, it doesn’t really build, it’s just four stories of Susan battling monsters, with the history stories. Can’t say I’d have missed it if it didn’t exist.

ARCANA ACADEMY: Book One by Elise Kova is a romantasy I picked up for this month’s Genre Book Club. It’s set in Oricalis, an oppressive kingdom where magic is channeled through the Tarot’s Minor Arcana and tightly controlled by the crown. All practitioners train in the eponymous school; practicing magic outside it will get you imprisoned or sent to the mines, where you’ll die fast extracting the minerals used for the magical card-inking (this reminded me of Diana Wynn Jones’ quip that in fantasy worlds, miners are always slaves).

Clara, the protagonist, was a rogue arcanist, imprisoned, but suddenly released by Kaelis, the sinister second son of the king. He passes her off as a lost heir to one of the great houses and his betrothed, part of a scheme to get her into the Academy and use her skills in his plan to remake the world. Clara soon finds he’s less of an ogre and more of a charmer than she thought, but can she trust him? Can his plan work? What about her missing, possibly dead sister?

The romance doesn’t play any bigger role here than in most fantasies; I’d have decided “romantasy” is purely marketing but the other members of the book club say otherwise. It’s definitely the weakest part — when they finally get physical (400 pages through a 500 page book) it feels like an absurdly rapid escalation rather than a slow build.

That said, I like the book. I love the idea of Tarot-based magic, the plot is complex, the characters are fun. I might have liked it better as a one-in-done rather than a series — the last 60-80 pages suddenly fling in so many twists, reveals and complications it felt rushed. Nevertheless I’ll pick up book two when the library gets it.

Covers by Oeming and Concorina, all rights remain with current holders.

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February 14, 2026 · 5:07 am

A slacker and an interrogator: one movie, one TV show

Another pick from the Leonard Maltin book TYG got me last year — AURORA BOREALIS (2005) stars Joshua Jackson as Duncan, a Minneapolis twentysomething who’s stubbornly resisting adulting: he works dead end jobs, sticks with the same group of friends he’s always had, and lets life continue in much the same vein it has since he graduated high school.

As the movie starts, however, Duncan’s just lost his convenience store job. His brother is using Duncan’s apartment to bang women without his wife knowing (inspired, Duncan says, by the Jack Lemmon movie The Apartment). And now his beloved grandfather, Donald Sutherland, is suffering both Parkinson’s and the onset of dementia. Can Duncan get his shit together enough to help both grandpa and grandmother Louise Fletcher?

Things change when Duncan meets Kate (Juliette Lewis), his grandfather’s home healthcare worker, a free-spirited vagabond who never stays long in one place. Sparks fly, they become lovers and she begins nudging him to become more than he is — but will the lure of keeping everything the same make a difference?

While I’m not fond of coming of age/New Adult books, I can enjoy the tropes in a movie and this was a good one, well-acted and well-written. The special features reveal it was based on a stage play which explains why, despite the title, we never see the Northern lights. Curiously, everyone insists the closing scene is open-ended because we don’t know how Kate/Duncan will work out in the long run; as you can say that about most HEAs, I don’t find this striking. Still, thumbs up. “Do you realize you sound like Don King when you use big words?”

A friend of mine used to be a huge fan of THE CLOSER, a 2005 TNT series staring Kyra Sedgwick as Brenda Johnson, a former CIA interrogator turned head of a major-crimes unit in Los Angeles. As it turned up on Netflix recently, I gave the pilot a look; it’s solidly done but I don’t know I’ll bother to watch more.

Johnson’s team aren’t thrilled about having an outsider in charge, she has a messy personal life, and in this episode she’s facing a headscratcher: An unknown women has been found murdered in a prominent plastic surgeon’s office. The surgeon’s vanished. The victim’s fingerprints are all over his home while the surgeon’s are nowhere to be found. How does it make sense? Like I said, it’s a solid job, fitting into the subgenre of cops who have One Simple Trick for getting to the truth. The Mentalist and Lie To Me both have someone who can read people like a book; Psych has a guy who’s hyper-observant about everything, HPI has someone who’s hyper-observant and can match up what she sees with a storehouse of knowledge. Here, Johnson’s a genius interrogator; having figured out what’s going on, she calmly guides the killer to a confession.

The results are good and if I were more of a fan of cop shows I might keep up with it. If I had more time for TV (and lately I don’t seem to) I might try a couple more episodes. As neither of these is the case …

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