Category Archives: Film & Mass Media

White Lightning is Back!

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An Eye for an Eye (1981) is the great lost Chuck Norris movie, if there is such a thing. Chuck Norris died a few months ago and I let his death pass unnoticed. I’ve already reviewed his movies here & here. This will be my final critical review of Chuck Norris and his impact on Hollywood.

The story in An Eye for an Eye is about a Chinese drug smuggling operation into the US, which Chuck Norris is hell bent on stopping. His police partner gets killed early, then his partner’s wife. This leads to Chuck Norris resigning from the police force to become a vigilante. Chuck Norris unwittingly confides in a police buddy who is working with the drug-dealing Triads, and is surprised (stunned silence) at the end when he discovers this betrayal. Every character is a stereotype that can be deciphered in about five seconds.

Chuck Norris doesn’t kill the main villain in the end, so it really isn’t the Biblical revenge promised in the movie title. It’s a lot of James Bond type explosions & helicopter chases, with hitmen who are often reluctant to use their guns & automatic weapons when facing Chuck Norris. This allows Chuck to kill many bad guys, which is the point of the movie. Christopher Lee sits in his palatial mansion with spreadsheets & a prospectus for all his well-healed partners in the heroin trade, going over every typed-out detail of the illicit operation, just as SWAT & the SFPD are about to raid them. There’s no real purpose or wrap-up at the end, as An Eye for an Eye stumbles towards the closing credits as the plot fizzles out.

I firmly stand by my controversial thesis that Chuck Norris movies must been seen as unintentional comedy– hideously silly tripe– for there to be any value in watching them. An Eye for an Eye is the third movie in his peak-era trilogy, following A Force of One (1979) & The Octagon (1980).

Upon final viewing I’m rating An Eye for an Eye as Chuck Norris’ second-best movie, behind The Octagon. It’s better filmed, directed, lit, edited & produced than A Force of One, which is grittier and more 8-track than the direct-to-VHS classic An Eye for an Eye. Chuck Norris movies seem to look better on TV for some unexplained reason. USA Network & TBS is where his movies lived in the 1980’s. The constant commercial interruptions on basic cable were often welcome relief to this Chuck Norris film buff.

Movies start in the public as a trailer. You view it before the main feature, or see a commercial on TV, and decide whether you want to go to the theater and see it when it comes out. In An Eye for an Eye, the trailer is better, much better, than the movie– and that hooked us back in the day. The music is better, the promo announcer adds to the excitement, and no doubt about it– action fans wanted to see this movie. White Lightning is back…

There was no social media back then to warn kids this movie is a turkey– you had to pay up & learn the hard way. Word-of-mouth reviews from Chuck Norris fans were unreliable at best.

To watch Chuck Norris movies you need to be able to absorb pain. The cast in An Eye for an Eye is mostly good enough, it’s Chuck Norris who keeps delivering the pain. He just doesn’t care, and clearly won’t do a second take when a scene needs one. With that established, let’s meet the rest of the cast.

Professor Toru Tanaka (above) played the henchman Oddjob in Goldfinger (1964) who wore a Square-Crown Bowler hat that doubled as a guillotine. He appears as a club-footed assassin in An Eye for an Eye. Diminished somewhat, but still a menacing villain, to me Oddjob doesn’t look like he’s aged a day since he battled James Bond to the death. He’s a perfect foil for Chuck Norris because he doesn’t speak, he growls & grunts while letting his wrestling moves do most of the talking.

Maggie Cooper is probably the best lead actress with whom Chuck Norris ever worked. Again, that’s a controversial statement, and I’m sure this will set Chuck Norris message boards ablaze with debate. There’s detectable chemistry for the first, and perhaps only time in his acting career. She really goes for it, but it appears in retrospect that it didn’t get her very far. Like so many other actresses before her, Maggie Cooper’s career wilted & died after working with Chuck Norris– and it was probably for the best. In this she best compares to Jennifer O’Neill in A Force of One, for the powerlessness she brings to her role.

Chuck Norris fears two things in his movies: intimacy & truth. Chuck Norris exits virtually every scene alone, always having to be the tough guy who walks out & rejects the other person first. When asked a serious question, he freezes like a block of ICE.

Mako was a Japanese-American actor who plays martial arts mentor to Chuck Norris in An Eye for an Eye. Mako had some talent and tried his best to lend some dignity to this movie, but Chuck Norris just wouldn’t allow it. Mako constantly reminds him to concentrate, but Chuck always shrugs him off with a smile. It’s not clear if Mako is referring to his sloppy martial arts or stunted acting, but he repeatedly implores to Chuck Norris, “Concentrate!”

Richard Roundtree [Shaft (1971)] gets a plum role in An Eye for an Eye, as Chuck’s boss in the SFPD. The best line in the movie is early on when Shaft remarks how well Chuck Norris’ left shoulder has healed, only a few scenes after he has taken a bullet wound. Chuck Norris apparently compensates for this by always punching the bad guys with his right hand throughout the movie.

Most kicks, punches & strikes in An Eye for an Eye are cut-away shots. Chuck Norris by now is relying more & more on editing tricks because he can’t do the martial arts well enough to impress/fool his audience. Many scenes are very well-composed, with impressive backgrounds and expert cinematography in An Eye for an Eye. The problem is when Chuck Norris enters the frame. He typically says little and does nothing. The idea in entertainment is to ‘get through the glass’, and reach your audience. Instead, Chuck Norris shrivels-up in front of the camera every time he’s asked to act. It’s comical. There is no one else who became such a big star, who was that bad artistically.

When Chuck Norris decides to go for action in An Eye for an Eye, he does stupid stuff like set fire to a freighter cargo hold full of fireworks because he couldn’t stay quiet & hidden. You must riff Chuck Norris movies to get through them without a lobotomy, and this leads us directly to the main villain in An Eye for an Eye— Christopher Lee.

The title character in The Castle of Fu Manchu (1969) was the role Christopher Lee was born to play. When you are a name actor who stars in possibly the worst movie ever made, that’s the role you were born to play. Christopher Lee, the UK-born actor, plays Fu Manchu like no one else can, making that film impossible to remake because you just can’t do that anymore.

Billed as a horror-adventure film, I feel there is an Andy Warhol quality to The Castle of Fu Manchu that has been overlooked. Unfortunately it’s so vague & indecipherable, I can’t define it– and neither can anyone else. If I had been paid to review movies at the time, and was asked by my editor to do a write-up of The Castle of Fu Manchu, and be kind; I would have written something like, “Fu Manchu is an assault on your senses!!”

Anyway, Christopher Lee brings his boring overblown act to An Eye for an Eye, and he becomes a comic delight as the evil bad guy whom no one is afraid. He makes speeches, acts indecisively, then cuts a figure for the camera on his closeups, while doing everything wrong in order to allow Chuck Norris to capture him in the end. Basically, Christoper Lee mimics his role as Fu Manchu. Gesundheit.

If you watch An Eye for an Eye in this spirit, the riffs will come and you’ll be thankful for them. This was the last movie where a studio invested in a decent script, crew, etc, to try to make a good Chuck Norris movie. After this it’s turds like MIA Braddock & Delta Force franchises, and then finally Walker Texas Ranger where Chuck Norris was permanently consigned to the small screen where he always belonged.

I’ve always felt Chuck Norris would have been best suited to be on a game show as some kind of mascot or attraction. Maybe a sidekick to the host. He could just stand there and be Chuck Norris and people would laugh & jeer. Imagine Chuck Norris as the co-host of Love Connection… now that would be entertaining!

In my alternate version of this classic dating game show, Chuck Woolery still hosts, but any date that goes badly would require the contestants to visit with Chuck Norris for romantic advise. Something like:

Chuck Woolery: Roberta & Jeremy had issues on their last date, so we’re sending them to Dr. Chuck to see if he can help them make a Love Connection…

Roberta [to Chuck Norris]: Jeremy doesn’t get aroused when I flirt with him. How can I remedy this?

Chuck Norris:

 

Roberta [to Chuck Norris]: Jeremy likes to drink beer and becomes abusive when he’s drunk. Does this need an intervention?

Chuck Norris:

 

Roberta [to Chuck Norris]: Jeremy likes to shoot his guns, sometimes more than he likes being with me, I feel. Is that a healthy relationship?

Chuck Norris:

 

Roberta [to Chuck Norris]: My vagina needs special stimulation before intercourse, can you give Jeremy any tips on that?

Chuck Norris:

 

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Trump crashes at MSG

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On the ABC pregame, NBA commissioner Adam Silver covered for Trump by saying he’s a long-time Knicks fan who was invited by owner James Dolan to attend, and that sports shouldn’t be divisive, etc… Question: If sports are to bring us all together, then why does Trump need so much security & isolation at MSG?

Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith, Draymond Green, Shaq & Ernie Johnson just sat there quietly during Adam Silver’s false explanation, even though every basketball fan knew how hoops fans really felt about it. If any of these analysts had contradicted Adam Silver, they would have been fired. Disgraceful coercion & capitulation all-around. It was nothing more than a photo-op and a chance to insert himself into the narrative of the NBA finals, everyone knew it, and it was a complete disaster for Trump.

As for the Knicks, they had one of the greatest home court advantages in sports flipped on them because Trump had to make his presence felt. When the MSG crowd is right, they are feverishly cheering for the Knicks, appreciating extra effort & hustle, and exposing phonies on the opposing team. To understand what has happened, we need to take a step back.

The person most responsible for reviving the New York Knicks is Tom Thibodeau. As their head coach from 2020-25, he re-instilled defense as the Knicks bread-and-butter, echoing the Patrick Ewing years when the Knicks were last competitive. Tom Thibodeau is considered an innovator of basketball defense, insisting on player accountability, connectedness, and strict help-side rotations to clog up the middle. Players must rotate early & hard to force a kick out pass, then recover & contest. Repeat until the possession is over. This involves sitting in a stance and literally working your ass off. It takes a lot of serious coaching to get players to buy into this, but it’s what wins.

Knicks fans who have attended games at MSG over the years know & appreciate this. The Knicks made the finals this year because they came together defensively. This is the Knicks most-talented roster in decades, and that deserves most of the credit. The Knicks under Mike Brown now have the players to make Tom Thibodeau’s defensive system work effectively, and it’s gotten them this far.

That defensive energy translates directly to the basketball crowd at MSG. Even the entertainment celebrities understand it. But when someone who ALWAYS demands to be the center of attention, and it widely despised, proclaims that he will be at game 3 in MSG, it sucks a lot of juice out of the building. For the fans & players, it’s no longer about the game; it’s about Donald Trump, and that doesn’t help the home team.

It wasn’t just a jinx that Trump brought into MSG in game 3, it was all the crap we watch sports to forget about for a few hours. Every fan in the building felt it, because they all had to go through extra security, etc, and it diminished their experience of the game. When you pay what it costs to attend a game like that, you feel cheated. You’re angry, and it affects your ability to cheer for the home team. That is absolutely real, and has nothing to do with a jinx.

Game 4 will still have the remnants of Trump– extra security and longer waiting in line to get in. Donald Trump has managed to neutralize the MSG crowd, which severely hurts the Knicks. I didn’t think it was possible, but everyone saw it. How can Donald Trump call himself a Knicks fan after falling asleep in game 3? For the NBA record, Trump distracted everyone in the building who wanted the Knicks to win, and that is carrying over for the rest of the series.

As far as who will win the series, game 4 will tell us a lot. I believe the Spurs are a better team, but the Knicks are close & more experienced. The best team doesn’t always win (see Celtics 1984), and sometimes something that has nothing to do with basketball can influence events on the court. Not since COVID-19 temporarily halted the 2019-20 NBA season has such a disruptive outside force influenced the finals.

For context, what I have written here is from a basketball fan who is not a Knicks fan, but appreciates this historic NBA franchise. Below is a 10-minute video which shows how Knicks fans (& New Yorkers in general) feel about Trump. Warning: It turns into a shameless promo for the Democrats after ~5 minutes, but the first half captures the essence of the moment well enough in its NY style.

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Beatles Evolution & Revolution

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If you are going to be successful as an act, you need management & a producer.

Brian Epstein was an ambitious music entrepreneur who managed the Beatles from 1961 until his death in August 1967. Epstein signed the Beatles with EMI’s Parlophone label, which became Capitol Records, and today is owned by Universal Music Group. Beatles songs were all produced by George Martin and remain a huge money maker, testifying to Brian Epstein’s ability to recognize talent, which itself is a talent, and then pair it with the necessary recording talent.

For the record, Brian Epstein was gay and like many stars & others of his era he died young (age 32) of a combined alcohol & barbiturate overdose, ruled accidental. Being gay is a difficult lifestyle, because apparently at some point there becomes an overwhelming need to separate from the mainstream. None of that conventional stuff satisfies. Beyond that, much of the conservative mainstream rejects gay, openly declaring its hostility.

Drugs & alcohol can become a refuge. Gay parties are different from straight parties. In my experience, there are much more drugs & sex going on at gay parties. Much of it is reckless & unprotected, as the attitude among many who are gay is to live it up today & die young. Many don’t want to live into old age, as they are in pain over their sexuality, and once it diminishes, their mental agony can become excruciating. Sadly this emotional pain leads to many early deaths.

Relationship building is an area where many people have issues. It’s especially hard for gays who have come out of the closet to trust straight people, because all straights said or did something offensive to their sensibilities at some point. It’s tempting for gays to become snowflakes on this, which doesn’t help anyone. Rehabilitation & education need to work together for there to be progress in sexual healing, but currently that is being cut out in favor of quackery, prejudice & identity politics. The real work that needs to be done is being actively resisted by all this.

After Epstein’s death, the Beatles attempted to manage themselves with Apple Records and it was a disaster. It wasn’t until after they officially broke up in the spring of 1970 that the Fab Four got they legal & financial issues in order so they could all get paid. Northern Songs was the famous Lennon-McCartney publishing company created under Epstein’s guidance. This got John & Paul paid equally on all their compositions.

George founded Harrisongs in 1964 which ensured he would get paid for his music. Ringo founded his own music publishing company, Startling Music Ltd, in 1968 after his deal with Northern Songs expired. Before the Beatles had begum to disintegrate as a band, each member was legally taken care of as far as songwriting, publishing & royalties. Those are the typical issues that break-up successful bands, and the Beatles showed the world how to handle it as it happened. “Creative differences” between band members is often rooted in legal issues that affect the commerciality of the act, along with who gets paid.

I’ve written in earlier posts that the Beatles wouldn’t be allowed to be successful in this 21-century era. The music industry has learned from the Beatles, punk rock, and 1990’s alternative rock/hip-hop. Those were times when popular music got out of their control and the industry doesn’t like that, even though it makes them billions of dollars. The industry wants to bottle everything up and endlessly sell it back to new generations of consumers, while never allowing another revolution in popular music. Historically, losing Frank Sinatra’s audience to rock & roll in 1955 started all this upheaval for the music industry. Charlie Parker & Sun Ra did the same in jazz.

You can’t stop history, which is metaphorically a raging river with unstoppable momentum & overwhelming power. Rock & roll is here to stay, and you can’t kill it. Same for reggae, rap, salsa, electronica, etc. Once a genre conquers the world, it becomes immortalized and can’t die because too many people, particularly kids, love it. It just keeps growing & flowing, increasing its influence as it goes along. All one can do is attempt to direct the flow. A revolutionary artist finds the best channel and directs all his/her energy into that historical task.

If the Beatles came along today and got their big audition on American Idol, Simon Cowell & company would listen for a bit, then insist to Paul that John be fired. Brian Epstein would be pushed out over a drug/sex scandal, etc, and Universal would handle all management through one of their preferred star agencies. This means Paul would be represented by CCA and be recognized as the undisputed band leader who gets all the songwriting & publishing money, while George & Ringo are a step above session musicians in this gig. If either protest they can easily be replaced. Drum machines that sample Pete Best & AI guitarists work much cheaper, making these new & improved Beatles more cost-efficient to the industry. This is the only way these new Beatles could be economically viable.

George Martin’s talents wouldn’t be applicable to these Beatles. Industry braintrust would surely prefer the guy who produced the Black Keys or Foo Fighters. New Beatles music would need that production edge with everything they’re missing, and George Martin is too subtle and respectful towards the artist to work in contemporary rock music which is now a top-down corporate-controlled project.

Under these conditions, John will struggle to get another opportunity as he’s too outside-the-box for this corporate era of music. He’s not sponsor friendly, so how can you market him? This is how all the gatekeepers & industry experts would understand a young John Lennon today. In this industry-created world, Paul McCartney & his New & Improved Beatles could become more popular than One Direction featuring Harry Styles. Of course, there wouldn’t be 1/10th the great songs from this new UK supergroup, but that’s just a cost of doing business.

Conclusion: There are great aspiring artists with the ability to make meaningful music, but it’s all being suppressed by ruling-class corporate which controls marketing, distribution & sales through its network of business partners, to which outsiders have no access. If you’re reading this, then you’ve discovered a real musical artist of the 21st-century. We’re all underground, censored & blacklisted by the establishment which has near-complete control over TV & the internet. It’s all dirty politics & big money that keeps us suppressed. Eventually the river of history will wash away all their detritus. This will happen when youth & working people unite in action, using music as a tool for revolutionary inspiration.

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My life with gay

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Beauty is blessing with a curse. Physical beauty attracts the opposite sex & gay. If you are attractive, you are going to have to deal with gay.

For the record, I’m 100% straight. Don’t believe that nonsense which declares everyone has gay in them. I have no desire for gay sex. That doesn’t make me anti-gay, it’s merely my sexual preference. Some snowflakes get jealous and attempt to persecute me for that. Anti-gay reactionaries are always looking for political cover for themselves, and a scapegoat to point their dirty fingers at. When you’re a real socialist, you get attacked from all sides politically.

I grew up in the 1980’s, when ‘coming out’ starting becoming in vogue. MTV & Madonna were a big influence on that, and it was certainly needed. I had Wisconsin high school friends (boys & girls) who came out after graduation, and I was among the first of the straights to be told by them. The gay boys were attracted to me, and the lesbian girls knew I was cool and would still be their friend. The ex-jocks & elitists were always the most reactionary towards gay, often claiming they were “betrayed” when they found out so-and-so was gay. That’s why most gays move out of the small towns and to the cities.

Those homophobic bigots were the people I soon lost touch with after high school, as they went on to become cops & local attorneys according to their aptitude. I soon lost touch with my new gay friends too, as that world became a culture that organically excluded straights who were unwilling to “experiment.” The only reason I was being invited to gay parties was because they wanted to have sex with me, not to be my friend.

I was kidnapped into a gay house sleepover in college. I thought I was being taken back to my dorm in downtown Milwaukee, but was instead taken to a rented home in Menominee Falls. I was introduced to all these new gay friends of my high school classmates, and was told we are having dinner & sleeping over here. [!!]

After this deception, I was uneasy about drinking alcohol, or anything else I didn’t serve myself. The meal was well-prepared, but hardly enjoyable. When it was time for bed, I slept alone on the living room couch, while everyone else went into a bedroom to have gay sex. It was my job to deal with all this like a man by waiting until morning to be taken to my desired destination, and not be a jerk about this. That’s a tough spot to be put in.

When gays are amongst themselves, they speak much more openly. After dinner, my just-came-out-of-the-closet male high school friend is examining the CD collection and is excited to see the Pet Shop Boys, Erasure, etc, well represented. The flaming-gay home resident says loudly to me with a wink & a laugh, “He’s going through his fag rock stage.”

Since then, all that 1980’s goth music has been ‘fag rock’ to me, because that’s what the fags call it– I heard it myself. That doesn’t make me anti-gay, it means I understand gay MUCH better than most straight people. Gay people need a few more straight people like myself who are honest about all this sexuality, because everyone else it lying about it for their own purposes.

For the record, my ‘gaydar’ is exquisitely sensitive, as it needs to be. I am usually the first straight man in the room to know there is a gay person in the area. This has been happening to me since I was a child, so what’s speaking here is a lifetime of experience & learning. If you are attractive, gay is going to find you. It’s all about how you deal with it. What you must do is:

1) Determine your sexual preference and don’t allow any unnatural forces to influence it
2) Determine you social attitude towards a group with whom you are not sexually attracted
3) Set healthy boundaries & limitations and maintain them

This is pretty advanced stuff for most people, as much of today’s society is failing Sex Ed 101. If you aren’t physically attractive, then you don’t have this problem of gay kidnappings, or being lured to their parties, gay bars, etc. Many heterosexual reactionaries are jealous of me because they are ugly. They want to pretend they know better, when in fact they know nothing on this. They claim to be protecting the public interest, when in fact they are fascist haters looking to scapegoat artists & leftists so their crimes can stay hidden from public accountability.

Jealously is the most dangerous emotion. It leads to contempt & uncontrollable rage. Nothing good can come from that. When politics get hyper-sexualized, everything gets distorted because most people are out-of-control when it comes to sex. Most people are never comfortable with their sexuality, and that becomes a root of many disorders– mental, physical, social, economic & political.

I have always turned to music in the face of such difficult & substantive issues. If you love the Velvet Underground & Nico produced by Andy Warhol (1967) they way I do, then you can’t be anti-gay. If you respect David Bowie, etc, in your music listening, then you are a friend of the gay community. With these tools at your disposal, you have all you need to connect with gay people on amenable terms– anytime, anyplace.

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Bitcoin bits & the Nancy Guthrie kidnapping

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Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent (portrait pic below) was asked the other day by a congressman if crypto was going to be bailed out, and it ended in a shouting match. The biggest bitcoin booster, Michael Saylor, is now deep underwater, as the crypto industry has been loaned hundreds of billions of dollars which they clearly won’t be able to repay. The issue has always been– will crypto be eligible for a taxpayer bailout when doomsday comes?

Here it is spilling out in the public arena after being discussed intensely behind closed doors. Since I last published, bitcoin has crashed & “recovered”– again. Banks have kept loaning to crypto up to this point, but it’s getting tougher to justify. This is the crisis which now imperils the entire capitalist set-up.

Bitcoin has “stabilized” again, let me explain how & why. First, peruse the reader comments to financial articles that discuss Scott Bessent and a possible taxpayer crypto bailout. They’re all negative– no bailout. These are people with money commenting, and none of them have an appetite for crypto. But bitcoin “bounced” again, so obviously the banks have quietly loaned Michael Saylor, etc, more money in another foolish attempt to re-inflate the bubble.

The music is still playing, but for how long? Trump tariffs & crypto are killing the US dollar with inflation. Tariffs make goods more expensive, while crypto (fake money) dilutes the dollar’s value when it is extensively invested-in by the US financial system. Warren Buffet said crypto is “rat poison,” and this is how it works.

Here’s an interesting post from an industry expert who has researched the latest bitcoin crash. In short, analysts now say derivatives are setting the bitcoin price. As liquidations pile up, questions are growing over how much Wall Street is manipulating bitcoin’s price. Recall that bitcoin was originally hyped by Libertarian money-nerds as “deregulated finance,” outside of government & Wall Street control. Today, all the premises underlying bitcoin (including finite supply) have been dispelled by capitalist machinations. For the original Kool-Aid drinkers, the crypto pitcher has run dry, and all that remains for them is a nasty hangover.

Of the $2.6B liquidated in the latest bitcoin crash, $2.1B came from liquidated long bets. “Long” means you bet the market would go up. Derivative short-sellers have been cleaning-up since 10-10-25, which was four months ago when Trump announced 100% tariffs on Chinese exports. Bitcoin started crashing from its $126,000 all-time high. Trump was forced to walk back that threat, but bitcoin kept falling and currently is at ~ $69K, after falling to $60K just two days ago. That cleaned-out all the long-bet suckers (again) down to $60K, and now it has been pumped up a bit and rests at just under $70K. It’s amazing how these crypto price levels magically hold & fluctuate.

Hypothetical question: What are the futures for an “asset” that has no legitimate use value?

Bitcoin is useless in the legitimate market because it is valued in dollars or some other fiat. You may as well just pay for what you need with a dollar, instead of crypto. Most legitimate institutions don’t take crypto because they have no good reason to. ANY illegitimate & criminal organization with any ambition deals in crypto– from the CIA/MI5 & Al Qaeda/ISIS to online scammers & wrench hack kidnappers.

The high profile kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie, mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie, reveals the actual use value of bitcoin. Apparently, the kidnappers are demanding payment in bitcoin, because it is online anonymous & virtually untraceable. The image below of the ransom demand sent to a local news station is blurry, just like everything else bitcoin is involved in.

Large bitcoin holders are targets for abduction, as they are often tortured into revealing the key codes to their virtual wallets. This is known as a “wrench hack,” because all that is needed is a wrench to beat the victim into submission. Bitcoin/crypto is intimately linked with these forms of criminal activity, and this is being under-reported in the mass media concerning Nancy Guthrie’s abduction.

We now learn from released documents that Jeffery Epstein was all over crypto from the start. Crypto links this entire corrupt nexus. The US government is now crypto fascist by definition. It’s how it operates behind-the-scenes, as crypto fascist is what the Trump administration intends to become in permanence.

What we can see from all this is that bitcoin has enabled a layer of crypto-criminals. Their activity ranges from online theft & kidnapping to Trump’s exploits in World Liberty Financial– his proprietary crypto exchange (founded in 2024) where he mints worthless Trump tokens and trades them for most established crypto such as bitcoin, along with any cash people will pay for his junk.

The consequences are to be paid by all of us who must endure higher prices with a dollar that is being devalued by crypto. Bitcoin does this by sucking-up money that could be better invested elsewhere, while undermining the value of fiat currency. Wall Street loans the money to crypto companies, then wins all its manipulated derivatives bets. That’s called getting paid on both ends, with the US taxpayers eventually being made to pay the bond holders & banks for all their losses on bad crypto loans.

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Finally, a helpful AI application!!

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Socialism AI, introduced by the WSWS on December 12, proves that you don’t need billions (or even millions) of dollars to build an effective AI system.

I’ve queried Socialism AI and it is most impressive. The point is that anyone with the technical know-how & initiative can build a useful AI system, so trying to monopolize this technology is a futile waste of money. The WSWS just launched the smartest AI system because they have the smartest people. That’s how you harness Artificial Intelligence to its full potential.

To understand the burning issues here it is necessary to describe the current ecosystem. Crypto & AI are deeply connected among the ruling elites, ideologically & financially, and bitcoin is the weakest link. There is little-to-no liquidity left in bitcoin, as a few whales such as Michael Saylor are the only remaining buyers propping up this nearly-dead market. It’s the same process in both fields, as monopoly capitalists try to control the technology, the difference is AI has real world value and bitcoin/crypto doesn’t. That’s why the upcoming financial crash is more likely to start with bitcoin, but AI giants will quickly get sucked in and require bailouts to survive.

Oppositional ideological response to Socialism AI mostly resembles the Luddites. Originally opposed to industrial machinery in England in the early 19-century on the grounds that it eliminated jobs & reduced pay & quality of output, Luddites destroyed machinery as a political response. This reactionary movement was crushed by early capitalism, as the owners of the machinery enlisted their government, the police & military, goon squads, etc, to rid themselves of these pests. The industrial revolution continued unabated by Luddism, and it has since been a derogatory political term, representing a reactionary dead end. Those who rail against AI are Luddites.

The fundamental problem with ChatGPT, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc, versions of AI is their pro-corporate bias, which claims “safe” or “neutral” reasoning on political issues, which always means pro-capitalist bias. The morality of capitalism is unquestionable as these AI systems are developed by (and in the interests of) the richest people in the world. Too much of AI is GIGO– garbage in, garbage out.

The problem is you can’t be intelligent if your reasoning is built on false assumptions. This severely limits all versions of corporate AI, and it is why it’s destined to go bankrupt and trigger a devastating global financial crash in the near future.

AI as a tool today is comparable to Wikipedia (& everything else) coming online in the early 2000’s. It was a huge advance, but pro-corporate bias kills much of its usefulness. Wikipedia can accurately recite hard science subjects such as physics & math, and do well in geology & archeology, but its pro-corporate bias kills its credibility in the fields of history, economics & politics. Social sciences are distorted through a pro-capitalist ideological lens. Many Wikipedia biographies are outright fakes– see Pussy Riot.

Socialism AI from the WSWS seeks to rectify that intellectual & moral injustice. Based on historical materialism and objective truth, Socialism AI is a much improved political tool for working people & youth seeking serious answers– anywhere, anytime. Give it a try.

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A case study in MLB inequality: 2025 LA Dodgers

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What’s wrong with MLB is now on full display during the NLCS featuring the scrappy small-market Milwaukee Brewers against the behemoth of baseball in the LA Dodgers. The Brewers had the best record in MLB in 2025 and were 6-0 against the Dodgers, so their fans had hope going in. They both had met in the 2018 NLCS, with the Dodgers winning in seven, in what was a competitive & hard fought series. The Dodgers were then handled by the Boston Red Sox in the World Series.

* Later it was revealed the 2018 Boston Red Sox had used Iphone watches to relay signs stolen through clubhouse video, which seriously violated MLB rules on technology use during games, so that year has a fan asterisk on its champion. In 2017 the Houston Asterisks relayed their stolen signs by banging trash cans and this is why MLB now has PitchCom. I’m excited that MLB batters, pitchers & catchers can finally appeal balls & strikes in 2026. It’s about time, as this greatly reduces zealous Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, etc, crowds from unfairly influencing balls & strikes. No fan will miss the art of pitch framing by a catcher in MLB, we’ll be glad it’s gone. Padres SS Xander Bogaerts was punched out on ball four at Wrigley Field in the 9th inning of a deciding game three in the wild card round as his team was rallying. Technology needs to be used to prevent over-excited umpires from doing the wrong thing just to please a home crowd. This is the sports era we live in. Too many people who aren’t really part of the game keep trying to insert themselves into the game. This creates too many asterisks.

In 2025, the Los Angeles Dodgers are showing the baseball world what front office brains, tremendous clout & bottomless spending can achieve. In a game as random & unpredictable as baseball, the Dodgers have virtually ensured themselves a World Series championship. That much is clear after two games of the NLCS, with the Dodgers leading 2-0 and going back to Chavez Ravine for the next three, if necessary. They may only need two, but the outcome already feels inevitable.

As a San Diego Padres fan, it’s our calling to know & dislike the Dodgers. The Padres are like the Brewers & Mariners, they’ve never won it– while Seattle has never been. Mariners are up 2-0 on the Blue Jays and going home in the ALCS. Both these ALCS teams are better than the 2025 Brewers, but neither are going to be able to match the Dodgers. There is a qualitative change in how the Dodgers do things that has led so many fans to this conclusion.

The Dodgers won it last year and were dominant. The Padres were the second-best team according to the champion Dodgers, but there was some distance between them. This year the Padres fell to the 10th-best team in MLB, making the playoffs but losing to the Cubs in the Wild Card round. Among the post-season qualifiers, the Padres only could have beaten the Reds or Guardians, making them the 10th-best MLB team in 2025.

The Dodgers didn’t dominate MLB during the 2025 regular season like they did last year. They had significant injuries on the pitching side, and their bullpen collapsed at times. The Padres had many opportunities to win the NL West, but couldn’t score runs consistently. Their superb bullpen & great defense carried them as far as they got. The Padres were a flawed team, as was every other team in MLB– except the Dodgers.

The Dodgers do things differently from everyone else because they have the clout & brains to do it. For instance, the Dodgers signed LHP Blake Snell last winter for 5/$137M, specifically to pitch in October. The Dodgers only got 61.1 IP from Blake Snell during the season, but they were never concerned and didn’t have to rush him back from injury. Contrast that to 2024, when Blake Snell pitched 104 innings with a 3.12 ERA for the San Francisco Giants and his team wasn’t happy with that. Snell signed late because he had a limited free agent market due to QO restrictions, etc. The 2023 NL Cy Young winner (his second) missed the early part of 2024 with oblique injuries and by the time he got healthy the Giants were out of it and even floated trading Blake Snell to the Yankees at the 7/31 deadline. After the 2024 season, Blake Snell opted-out of his deal and inked with the Dodgers, who only expect him to pitch like an ace in October. The Dodgers are a different animal. Most teams need their ace all season AND in the post-season. Many teams have their World Series aspirations derailed by an injury to their ace. The 2025 Dodgers have four aces.

Big RHP Tyler Glasnow (4/$117M) pitched only 90.1 innings during the season, so he’s recovered, rested & ready to go for the playoffs, with an arm that most MLB post-season starters had in June. DH/RHP Shohei Ohtani 47 IP, 2.87 ERA during the season in which the entire organization has been building him up as a post season starter. RHP Yoshinobu Yamamoto (12/$325M) is the Dodgers true ace, making 30 starts with 173.1 IP and a 2.49 ERA. They didn’t overuse him trying to make the post season because they knew from the start they would probably win their division and surely make the playoffs. This is programmed planning that begins well before spring training. The Dodgers used homegrown pitchers to eat innings during the 2025 regular season, which allowed them to save their expensive aces until the playoffs. No other team can do that.

LHP Clayton Kershaw is a Hall-of-Famer, but he’s no longer dominant. In his final season he gave the Dodgers 112.1 above average innings as a starter. In the 2025 playoffs Clayton Kershaw is a middle-leverage reliever, and to his credit he accepts his role. RHP Dustin May pitched 104 innings and was good enough during the season, but gets left off the post-season roster. Tony Gonsolin is another Dodger homegrown righty starter who doesn’t make their post-season roster due to injury and/or ineffectiveness.

The Dodgers just use these guys and many others like them in the bullpen, to get through the regular season while allowing their championship level pitchers the season to recover and be ready to win in October. The Dodgers are playing a different game as compared to the rest of MLB. Even the Yankees have to struggle and fight with everything they’ve got just to reach the post-season. The Mets didn’t even make the post-season with a $320-350M payroll in 2025. The Dodgers spent the same or more than the Mets. The Shohei Ohtani contract currently defers $68M annually, so payroll commitments for the Dodgers are really over $400M/season. On top of that, their clout is all-powerful. Last winter in international free-agency, the Dodgers grabbed ace RHP Roki Sasaki, who is now their post-season closer. The Padres were in the Roki Sasaki running, but were forced to concede to the Dodgers, otherwise MLB would cancel (or at least downgrade) their TV deal.

It’s a fluid situation season-by-season these days, but in 2025, MLB produced & distributed local broadcasts for five teams: Arizona Diamondbacks, Cleveland Guardians, Colorado Rockies, Minnesota Twins, and San Diego Padres. These are teams that couldn’t negotiate a lucrative-enough TV-rights deal on their own, so MLB broadcast their games and paid these teams much less than others with their own deals.

For instance, on January 28, 2025, the Dodgers and Time Warner Cable signed a 25-year broadcast agreement valued at $8.35 billion, which would see the establishment of a new channel known as SportsNet LA. By comparison, the Padres lost $80-100M in the Diamond Sports Group bankruptcy, announced in March 2023, and have been trimming payroll while trying to remain competitive ever since. By the time Roki Sasaki was conceded to the Dodgers last January, all the remaining top international prospects had been signed, so the Padres were shut out of the 2025 international draft after signing the top prospect two years running. It’s like shoving sand against the tide for Padres GM AJ Preller.

And most fans feel pretty much the same at this point. No other league allows one team to outspend its competitors by 3-4 times. The NFL & NBA understand that star salaries need to be capped, while most athletes understand there needs to be more payroll equity at the bottom– especially for younger players. MLB is probably heading towards an owner lockout after the 2026 season.

There are serious labor rights issues here, along with ownership-league issues on competitiveness. These inequalities are distorting the game to the point where whichever big-market team manages itself the best and wins the hot stove season is virtually guaranteed a World Series. When MLB gets to the point we are now, radical new thinking is required. The same old tweaking, and revising of a broken system just leads to more conflict. The root issues are money & power over the game.

Players need to start taking more ownership of their game. It’s their labor that creates the game with all the fan interest. Billionaire owners mostly don’t understand baseball and only want to make money for themselves from it. This hurts the players, the fans, and the game itself. Capitalism is about crushing your competition, and that’s what the Dodgers are doing to baseball right now. MLB needs 30 teams competing on a level playing field for the game to be interesting again. In 2025, we have MLB hyping its behemoth for maximum ratings, while fans who have already anticipated the outcome are rapidly losing interest.

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NIL issues with AI

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Note: This short piece is an extension of “What is Tilly Norwood?”, published yesterday.

NIL means Name, Image & Likeness, and it has transformed college sports since Ed O’Bannon won his lawsuit with the NCAA in 2015-16. Women’s hoops has undergone a qualitative transformation with athletes like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese & Paige Bueckers getting paid in college, then popularizing the WNBA to new heights.

The owners of the NCAA & WNBA want to convince everyone that it is their platform that has created this success, when really it’s the players. WNBA franchise values have exploded this year due to the players making the game more popular. It’s always the workers who create the value, with the owners trying to convince everyone the opposite. It’s high time for exploited workers to take control of their industries and shout down the parasitic & criminal owners who are impeding progress for humanity.

When it comes to Tilly Norwood, she is a composite of many young female likenesses that have been stolen and re-packaged as proprietary to a corporation. “Tilly Norwood is art,” says it’s creator, but art always acknowledges those who helped make it possible, while Particle6 erases them from history and pays no future royalties. The young women who contributed to create Tilly Norwood by having their faces & bodies scanned are kept anonymous and never compensated beyond that session.

AI is becoming a cheap way to replace people– from film to TV to pornography. It’s also being used to replace workers in other industries, because the people who currently own & control AI are ruthless capitalists, always looking to cut costs and increase their profits. This doesn’t work for the vast majority, who are being exploited & discarded with no future. Humanity is better than this, but we need new leadership and it has to come from a unified international working class.

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What is Tilly Norwood?

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If you read the Wikipedia page to “Tilly Norwood” and check the (currently) twenty references, you’ll notice than none are earlier than 9/27/25, and most are dated yesterday & today– see the screenshot below. Before then no one knew of this artificial intelligence (AI) generated actress that is taking Hollywood by storm. AI is a powerful tool that is being put to use by the ruling class to cuts jobs & production costs for big studios.

According to Wikipedia, “Tilly Norwood was created by Xicoia, the artificial intelligence (AI) division of Particle6, a production company founded by Dutch actress-turned-producer Eline Van der Velden in 2015. Xicoia was officially announced on September 27, 2025 [last Saturday], at the Zurich Summit, part of the Zurich Film Festival… Van der Velden stated she intended Norwood to be the next Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman… and Particle6 has stated that using Norwood could cut production costs by 90%.”

This has raised immediate & hysterical alarm bells among actors, including/especially A-listers. AI Commissioner, the computer generated comedy sketch which launched Tilly Norwood has been described as clunky, unreal & unfunny. Yet, the question within the entertainment industry is, “Will a talent agency sign Tilly Norwood?” The answer appears to be yes. Here’s the Particle6 video introducing Tilly Norwood to the world:

Tilly Norwood never gets old, and costs 1/100th of an A-list actress. Tilly Norwood never gives the director a hard time on anything. Tilly Norwood is pornography coming to Hollywood. Every actor now realizes they are screwed, just like the rest of us who work for a living. Welcome to the class war you’ve been ignoring for all these years in the name of your careers.

That’s how a lot of movie fans feel about Hollywood actors at this point. The fascists came for the immigrants, socialists, leftists….and when they finally came for them, the A-listers, no one was left to defend them. That’s celebrity ignorance coming back around to haunt them. How about lending your collective voices to the revolution? You’re pampered by comparison and not as good as you think, which is why AI snuck in and is about to wipe you out as an influential social class. Nobody who works for a living feels sorry for these living marionettes because they had it coming.

All the actors & actresses who supported the #MeToo campaign, which wiped out much of the top talent, are now about to be wiped out with AI. Ask Kevin Spacey, Dustin Hoffman or Bill Murray how they feel about this and their thoughts and feelings will echo what I’ve written. These pretty puppets who backstabbed their talented colleagues to get ahead are now themselves on the chopping block. The irony couldn’t be more real for those blacklisted & MeToo-ed.

Tilly Norwood is deep-fake pornography presented as legitimate. This is how messed-up things are in entertainment. The audience is reduced to a bunch of fat, stupid losers, who don’t appreciate the difference between what’s real and what’s fake. It’s part of the dumbing-down of culture, which now defines Hollywood and the entertainment industry. If movies are all superhero blockbusters, action propaganda, or lame rom-coms, then why not have AI actors? That’s the logic of the capitalist market, which monopolizes power into the hands of the richest class that gets to make all the decisions on what’s best for everyone.

Tilly Norwood can be featured in any of these types of movies, without any artistic value being compromised, because there isn’t any artistic value to begin with. Feature Tilly Norwood on AGT, The Voice, or The Masked Singer. Just punch her in, it wouldn’t matter, as these would still be the same shows filled with vapid ass-clowns & over-produced garbage. When culture is allowed to deteriorate to such a degree that this is possible, it becomes apparent to EVERYBODY that we need a revolution. That’s the explosive nature of what Tilly Norwood represents.

You can’t interview Tilly Norwood face-to-face. Everything she says is someone else’s words & ideas, so how can a public ever accept Tilly Norwood? How does Tilly Norwood accept an Oscar or Emmy? How can Tilly Norwood be considered an actress if she isn’t a real person?  Aesthetically, Tilly Norwood is a cartoon, no matter how lifelike she appears. It’s such a joke, yet it’s also the foreseeable future of Hollywood entertainment.

That’s the dialectics of revolution. Tilly Norwood represents the complete bankruptcy of the entertainment industry and the need for it to be overthrown. It means the studios don’t care about the quality of their content, they just want to cut costs and not pay anyone. This is the economic model being applied to science, healthcare, education, etc, and it’s what’s failing us.

Tilly Norwood means we as a society are going to allow pornography to be legitimate while Jeffery Epstein clients will never be prosecuted because they aren’t so bad, etc… Tilly Norwood is the specter of fascist degradation which now looms over humanity. You can’t ever actually meet her, but you can follow her on Instagram. What more could you ask for?

The WNBA players are currently trying to win themselves a fair share of the league they have created & built through their work, but the commissioner (who always represents the owners), has been telling them to be grateful for what they get, as if they can be replaced. Fortunately for the players, the WNBA is real and can’t be replaced by AI. But listening to the WNBA commissioner, one gets the impression she & the owners wish they could.

What we have in both instances is the same struggle, but in different stages: workers (actors & WNBA players) against capitalists represented by team owners & big production studios. The WNBA is booming, and the players now realize they should be profiting more from their labor. Their CBA is about to expire after the Finals. The WNBA owners aren’t budging on player salaries or any other important issues. It’s capitalist greed that is leading to a labor war in the WNBA, and next season is already in question.

The WNBA players need to realize they are a part of a much greater struggle, otherwise they will be isolated & defeated. The owners & corporate media are too powerful for working class start-up institutions such as the WNBA players. The ruling class defeat of A-list actors with the introduction of Tilly Norwood is confirmation of that. Working class consciousness & solidarity across all industries is required to defeat capitalist fascism.

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Jimmy Kimmel or Charlie Kirk?

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Millions of people who never watch Jimmy Kimmel Live! tuned in last night to see his return to the airwaves after the Trump administration & FCC chairman Brendan Carr (pic below) pulled him for comments he made concerning the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Nothing Jimmy Kimmel said to get him cancelled the week before was outside the boundaries of free speech, but we now live in an era where Constitutional rights are being shredded by a fascist ruling class.

The Trump narrative is that Charlie Kirk was assassinated by a leftist, without providing a shred of evidence for this. Any suggestion that the shooter had right-wing ties is considered slander by the fascist Trump administration, despite the fact the shooter was a confirmed Trump supporter. The Democrats won’t acknowledge this truth, which leaves the field open for pro-Kirk fascist propaganda which has been non-stop since the shooting. Facts don’t matter anymore in politics, as big money demands conformity & obedience.

Here is Jimmy Kimmel’s opening monologue last night:

Jimmy Kimmel is to be commended for standing up to a fascist administration which seeks to stifle free speech and any political dissent. ABC initially acquiesced to Trump’s bullying, but were forced to retract due to overwhelming popular demand. This is another fact that is being downplayed in the media. Kimmel is more popular than Trump, says the American people, and that’s why he was back on the air last night– to Trump’s dismay. The ruling class is in crisis with no popular support for its reactionary policies.

Free speech advocates have become Kimmel’s new demographic, and there are a lot of them in America and around the world. Kimmel’s removal was part of a murky backroom deal demanded by the dictator-in-chief. Two giant right-wing corporate affiliates Nexstar Media Group & Sinclair Broadcast Group have refused to broadcast Jimmy Kimmel Live, despite the voracious viewer demand for his return. All this is part of appeasing Trump for his approval of their merger. These two companies control about 20% of the US media market, and are currently airing Celebrity Family Feud in place of Kimmel.

Right now, those are the battle lines in this free speech media war. Disney, ABC’s parent company, has lost nearly $4B in market capitalization over this, as viewers have cancelled their Disney+ subscriptions en masse. YouTube views of last night’s Kimmel monologue have exploded, and Hulu airs the next day, so how long will Nexstar & Sinclair lose advertisers & revenue over an ideological battle they really can’t win? This remains to be seen.

Charlie Kirk was a racist, homophobic, Christian nationalist who advocated political violence. Jimmy Kimmel is a liberal comedian talk show host. Which is more dangerous? To ask the question is to answer it. The lionization of Charlie Kirk is a disgusting spectacle that revolts tens of millions of Americans, so there needs to be voices allowed to express that sentiment, otherwise we have a fascist dictatorship. The Kimmel controversy highlights how close we are to that.

Jimmy Kimmel & Charlie Kirk are now forever connected in politics as they represent very opposite viewpoints. Keep in mind, Jimmy Kimmel is tame by any serious political standard. But free speech advocates support Jimmy Kimmel’s right to speak his mind without being censored. Too many socialists & left-wing activists have already been blacklisted & silenced, and it’s been going on for decades. What the Kimmel-Kirk-Trump conflict reveals is the deep-going nature of fascism today, and the popular impulse to resist it.

George Carlin paraphrased it best: If you don’t like the content, then change the channel. We have a president who is being allowed to be a dictator that can’t use a remote control properly, so he decides to take away everyone else’s TV remote control options. That’s like cutting millennials off from the internet, and it will quickly & predictably provoke a massive & angry response. People are now tuning-in to Jimmy Kimmel just to be part of a resistance to fascism. That’s what Jimmy Kimmel represents right now, and it’s a heavy burden to carry, so popular leftist support is all important.

On the ICE shooting in Dallas, Texas this morning: Clearly ICE isn’t doing enough to protect detainees & inmates from harm. Some nutcase shot through an ICE van and killed one detainee while wounding two others. Shut this American gestapo down through mass worker action, not political violence. That’s leftist ideology. Anything else is fake left, false-flag provocation & political confusion that has nothing to do with Marxism or socialism. This is the ‘big lie’ imperialist slander which must be politically defeated to end ICE terrorism.

Leftists educate & organize the workers & youth. Anarchists & Stalinists play into the hands of the Western imperialists with their reactionary brand of violence. Socialists condemn this pathological shooting, whose casualties were three detainees. If it had been three ICE agents as casualties, socialists would condemn it just the same because this isn’t the answer. It’s impossible to find a bourgeois politician who can be fair to the left because they view socialists as their existential enemy to be slandered, terrorized & annihilated. These capitalist criminals are responsible for this violence, and people need to be allowed to say that, otherwise we live in a police state.

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