Students Say ‘Sure’ and Get the News Reported

 

Home page of MMU Times, thanks to some new students getting involved.

Advising an online student news site has been a journey. The Mount Mercy Times at Mount Mercy University, where I teach, gave up a print newspaper last year.

I’m sure it was the right move. We were throwing away too many printed copies, and finding a newspaper in Iowa with a press to handle our small press run was becoming too difficult—too much cost, too much waste, too much hassle. Thus, now we’re the online Mount Mercy Times.

The biggest disadvantage of that is, even if the printed papers were mostly tossed, they were a visible reminder to the campus that the Times exists, and the need to fill a print edition pushed the students to organize, collaborate and get things done. Sadly, with no print deadline to push us, the Times produced far less journalism last year compared to years before.

It did not disappear, but it hasn’t yet found its legs as an online news source.

Still, today was a hopeful day. Mount Mercy was set to announce a new football program today, a big deal—but one of my few staff students (we’re still building the staff for this year), the sports editor, had class at the same time as the announcement was being made.

However, in a general education communication class I teach, there is a student who had expressed some interest in writing for the MMU Times this semester. The Oral Communication class ended at 11:20 a.m.—would this student be willing to rush over to the Plaster Athletic Complex, take a camera with him, and cover his first story?

He thought about it for a second. He has a science test this afternoon. But, heck, he had a few minutes. “Sure,” he said.

So, Jonas shot a picture of me to get used to the camera, and then took off. But a few minutes after class, he and Lillian, another student from the class, saw me walking across the Rohde Family Plaza, heading for the library. “Professor Sheller!” Lillian yelled. “Where is the ceremony?”

At the Plaster Athletic Complex. A quarter mile from where we stood. In 10 minutes. Jonas looked a little doubtful. “Can you give him a ride?” I asked Lillian. I would have offered, but I ride a bike to work and Jonas would not fit on my bike's front handlebars (besides, I had to meet a student in the library and could not go to the ceremony myself anyway).

She thought for a second. “Sure,” she said.

Sometimes, “sure” is the best thing you can have a student say.

Jonas, chauffeured by Lillian, covered his first news story—a major one, as it turned out, that ended up on the top of the Times home page.

Jonas Gutierrez, MMU students, writes his first story for the MMU Times, I hope he writes many more.

Not all my problems with the story were over, however. As anybody in the news business can tell you, shooting images and writing a story is only the start. Who would edit the story?

As it happened, Keira was in the Times office to take a mid-term exam in a PR writing class. Would she be willing to have me, both her professor and the Times faculty advisor, have her take a brief break to read and copy edit a story Jonas had just finished typing?

“Sure,” she said. Well, I don’t recall if she used that exact word, but it seemed to be the word of the day, and in any case, she agreed and did it so she said “sure” in spirit.

Keira Carper in the MMU Times office, where today she edited her first Times story. In the middle of a mid-term exam.

The ceremony started at 11:30 a.m. I put together a shell of a story based on a statement posted by MMU, so Jonas could have a head start entering his information. When he came to the Times newsroom in the library at about 12:15 p.m., he said “here is the camera, now I have to go take my exam.”

Great—but any chance you could add your quotes and finish the story before your exam? He didn’t exactly say “sure,” but I’m sure he meant it, because, again, he paused for a second, thought about it, and then agreed to do it. The story was drafted by 1. By 1:30, Keira had edited the story. By 2 or so, it was posted to the MMU Times web site.

Cheerleaders at ceremony. One of the images made for MMU Times by Jonas Gutierrez.

Well, reporting news on the same day is one advantage of being an online news source, over being a paper printed twice a month. Nevertheless, it was a roller-coaster of a day for me—would we have a story? Would we have images? Early this morning, it seemed like the stars would not align, but here we were in the afternoon with a news web site updated.

There’s more to come. Another student shot more images at the ceremony, and I’m sure we’ll update the Times web site with a longer photo gallery from this big day as soon as I get my hands on the Times camera that she used. And our sports editor will be collecting campus reaction for a second-day reaction story on the news.

Still, score one for student news media at MMU. They pushed themselves, and scored a sports news touchdown today. And may many more students say “sure” and keep student news alive at Mount Mercy University.

Worst Night for Ohio Dogs Since John Denver

What I see watching the Sept. 10, 2024 presidential debate.

The last time Ohio dogs got so much press was decades ago when singer John Denver rather rudely warbled about how bad his experience in Toledo, Ohio, was, ending his scathing tune with: “And here's to the dogs of Toledo, Ohio/Ladies, we bid you goodbye!”

Ouch. Mean and unfair on many levels. An odd, maybe even weird, insult, given that any town of any size, including Toledo, has a diverse range of women, none of whom deserve to be classified as canines by any shallow man.

And yet, the strange media universe was not yet done with weird men making peculiar mentions of Buckeye bowwows.

I watched the presidential debate Tuesday night. Yikes! What a difference contrasted to the first one. Then, the focus was on how confused and old Joe Biden seemed. To be honest, lost in the reaction to Biden’s poor performance was the fact that Donald Trump spent much of even that night spouting weird nonsense.

Well, how times have changed. In the wake of the first debate, President Biden decided to drop out of the presidential race, and the Democratic Party named Vice President Kamala Harris as its nominee.

And at debate two, delusional Don was back in full force with no slightly older man to hide behind and shield the crazy. Apparently, every country in the world is emptying its mental hospitals and prisons and dumping its criminal or confused people on Uncle Sam. As a result, crime worldwide is down, but dogs in Ohio are worried.

Sound plausible? Really?

ABC fact checked the dog claim—so, so surprising that this story seems to have little basis in the reality most of us inhabit on planet Earth, and yet some weird people, like GOP VP nominee JD (Just Doing the weird) Vance keep repeating the weird anecdote.

Post immigrant barbecue photo from Springfield, Ohio. Or skeleton image of Saint Bernard from a Brazilian vet college's collection, taken from Wikimedia Commons. Do your own research.

As Harris said during the debate, some of Trump’s remarks make a rational person question his ability to understand what is a fact and what isn’t.

Another example of the wacky, weird world of doddering Don: When Harris said foreign leaders don’t like him, Trump’s retort was that Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán thinks he is great. Now, I know that Viktor’s vigorous opposition to both immigration and the LGBTQ+ community have made him a bit of darling on the worst fringes of the right wing—but Orbán is an anti-democratic ruler, an authoritarian. Holding him up as your evidence that “world leaders” like you is, yup, weird.

June 2024, Giorgia Meloni, prime minister of Italy, speaks with Viktor Orbán, prime minister of Hungary. Is V the prominent world leader that would prove you have global popularity? Image from Wikimedia Commons by the European Union.

My wife doesn’t drink, but we had some large chocolate bars, and she decided we would play a non-alcoholic version of a drinking game during the debate. Instead of a shot, we would each break off and eat a small piece of chocolate every time we clearly heard Donald Trump say something inconsistent with reality. In others, one lie equals one munch.

I don’t think the chocolate lasted 20 minutes.

It’s an odd measure of our dysfunctional current politics and the disinformation age we live in, but it’s not likely Trump will lose much of his support despite his being the confused old man in the race. More than confused, Tuesday he was petulant, racist (his anti-immigrant extreme rants are racist dog whistles), even delusional.

Still, Trump’s support is rock solid. But the candidate, despite claiming he and JD are “solid” rather than “weird,” was clearly a bit shaky and unhinged Tuesday. He was unprepared to debate. He also seemed, to those who aren’t caught in his rather shockingly large, weird bubble of popularity, unprepared  and unqualified to be President.

Harris wasn’t perfect in her performance. Like many candidates in many debates, she preferred to deliver canned stump soundbites rather than actually answering the questions that were asked, a habit she started right off the bat with her first non-answer to the first question. Since starting her run, she has been correctly criticized for avoiding reporters and their nagging questions.

Still, she didn’t need to be perfect Tuesday night. The race is still close and Trump still has a clear path to victory, God helps us—but the night was a much better one for sane Kamala than crazy Donald.

Following the debate, Taylor Swift noted on Instagram that she is endorsing Kamala. Swift has endorsed Democrats in the past, and her public pronouncement wasn’t a surprise—but it was partly prompted by Trump, who had posted fake AI-generated Swift endorsements of Trump.

Most famous Instagram post in the immediate post-debate time period. A swift Swift reaction to the crazy.

Passing on those lies, and Trump's poor performance in the debate, seems to have been too much for Miss Swift.

As for me: I’m not single. I’m not childless. I’m not a lady. I have no cats. Even though I think of myself as a bit of a Swiftie in that I enjoy her songs, any political statement from any pop singer, even an intelligent, accomplished woman like Taylor Swift, isn’t going to move my political needle much.

And I concede the reality that I was already firmly in the “never Trump” camp well before Tuesday night anyway.

Still, what the heck. Viktor O’s endorsement? Fake stories of Springfield, Ohio’s endangered animals? Calling Kamala a “Marxist?” Trump is the worst. And the weirdest. The debate Tuesday just made that reality obvious.

A Pair of Cool Summer Films on Life Stages

Magnolia Pictures publicity image for Thelma, June Squibb as titular character, Fred Hechinger as her grandson Danny.

Disney publicity image of Anxiety, voiced by Maya Hawke, from "Inside Out 2."

I don’t go to the movie theater all that often, but twice in recent weeks my wife and I decided to catch a flick at the local cinema. As chance would have it, both movies we saw were, to some extent, ruminations on maturity, on the nature of aging and stages of life. To me, one was good although not great; the other was unexpectedly excellent.

When “Thelma” comes out on DVD, for us dinosaurs who don’t consume all our media from streaming services, you can bet I’ll snatch up a copy. Thelma is the gem.

When “Inside Out 2” hits the bargain bin, I’ll be willing to pick it up, too. It’s re-watchable, a good movie, but the disappointment is that it’s a sequel to a much better film.

“Inside Out 2” continues the adventures of Riley, a girl who has moved from Minnesota to California, where her father is part of a tech startup in San Francisco. The premise of the first movie was to personify key emotions and visually represent the interior working of the brain as Riley struggles with the stress of the move. That first movie was poignant, clever and thought-provoking.

Who thought we could choke up over the fate of an imaginary character who is part cat, part elephant, part dolphin and mostly cotton candy? Bing Bong, Riley may have left you behind, but we won’t ever forget you.

Anyway, that was the first movie. Part of its theme was that sadness is as important as joy, and maturing means learning to acknowledge and live with all of your emotions. At the end of the film, an expanded control panel is installed in brain HQ, with a big warning light labeled “Puberty.”

Which, almost inevitably, sets up “Inside Out 2.” And, of course, the siren sounds, the light flashes and suddenly, puberty hits, signaling a total remodel of HQ, among other things—including new emotions. Anxiety, Ennui and Embarrassment join the club.

The sequel is still clever, and has many good themes and moments. I like the idea of your self-concept being healthier if it is more inclusive of your actual experience and self, and not just what you desire to be rather than what you are. But the new emotions didn’t make as much sense to me. In the first movie, we saw inside HQ of the adult characters, who had the same core set of emotions as the 11-year-old Riley. And while I thought she was amusing to watch, is Ennui an emotion? And isn’t Embarrassment really an Elaboration of Fear?

I also wasn’t in love with all of the new side characters, the popular girls Riley aspired to be with or the current friends she was willing to leave behind. Funny that an imaginary friend from movie one seemed more emotionally “real” than any real friend from movie two. The concept makes sense—puberty is certainly a time of intense anxiety about one’s place in the peer social order, it’s just that the characters and dialogue didn’t resonate all that well with me.

Still, it was a good, watchable film, one I would be willing to see again, but probably wouldn’t do lots of repeated watches as I have with the original "Inside Out."

And then there is “Thelma.” How to describe “Thelma?” Think action move where our hero is a realistic character in her 90s. She has a death-defying trip across a maze—the interior of a cluttered shop—that is as dramatic as any break-into-the vault scene in a thriller, but reflects the limits of mobility of a body as it ages. Thelma has a grandson who looks after her and loves her, but in some many ways, it turns out Thelma is the adventurous, capable one, unfazed by and able to overcome her limits in a way that her grandson isn’t.

I think that’s part of the theme of this movie—so much of what holds us back is ourselves and how we picture ourselves. It’s not only what we can do, but what we allow ourselves to do.

And yet, “Thelma” acknowledges realities of ageing. As her main sidekick, an old man from a nursing home, says, “we are diminished.” A person in their 90s can be emotionally and mentally very sharp, but not quite as quick nor as physically strong as a younger person can be. In one sad scene, Thelma and her sidekick visit an old friend (to “borrow” a gun), and the old friend is obviously well beyond the point where she should be living alone at home. It happens at different rates and different times for different people, but age will eventually diminish any who survive to their golden years.

In a way, both movies are about self-knowledge, about the importance of recognizing who you really are, and what the realities are about your point in the road of life. And both have June Squibb—as a minor character (Nostalgia) in "Inside Out 2," and the main star of "Thelma." In my mind, “Thelma” is a 4.9 and “Inside Out 2” is a 3.9; they’re both worth seeing and thinking about.

And I suppose that’s the best thing one can say about any work of dramatic art—play, novel, TV show or movie. It if makes you more aware of yourself and seems to explore some fundamental realities of this human life, well, that’s a win. Maybe it’s a binge-worthy thing—watch “Inside Out 2” and then “Thelma.” That would seem to be a few hours well spent.

Shooting Attempt on Trump was a Tragedy

Watching the June 27 presidential debate in my family room.

Republicans who call on Democrats to tone down the “danger to democracy” rhetoric have a point.

But, let’s be a bit careful, there, too. Hyperbole has a place in our politics, and if the rhetoric used by the left to describe Donald Trump is sometimes too hot, well, it’s often pretty cool compared to what Trump and Trump supporters state.

But first—to be clear, an attempted assassination of an American political figure (and any political figure in any country that at least approximates democratic governance) is terrible and a tragedy. Even those of us who want Trump defeated should not seek nor call for a violent end to his political ambitions.

Bullets and ballots don’t mix well, and in this country, in all of the democratic countries of the world, violent rhetoric should never be an excuse for literal violence.

Our crazy, overheated, hyperbolic political strife has boiled over thanks to the actions of a man in Pennsylvania. Did he act alone? Did the Secret Service act correctly? I do not want to speculate. I will wait for answers.

But violence has too often invaded our politics of late—from both the right and the left. Let’s not forget that Jan. 6, 2021, represented a violent attempt to overturn an election.

I’m very grateful that the assassination attempt against Donald Trump failed. I hope we don’t see others like it aimed at either Trump or Biden or, for that matter, Nancy Pelosci, Gabby Giffords, Steve Scalise or any other elected public official or candidate.

Fourth of July fireworks (on evening of July 3) in Marion Iowa. The "bombs bursting in air" in our National Anthem were aimed at a foreign power, not at other Americans.As Benjamin Franklin supposedly said, we'll have a republic--if we can keep it.

It's constitutional, we have a legal right and even an ethical obligation to "petition the government for a redress of grievances." And petitions can be a bit loud and rowdy and still be legit. But, please, no more guns for political points.

We established a government of the people and by the people more than 200 years ago and anybody gunning for a candidate, former elected official or elected official is attacking the basis of a government that we all own. Yes, I understand that our country was founded in an armed rebellion against a king—but we are wrong if we think our strident political disagreements of today call for continuing armed rebellion. Against whom? We the people? Neither Donald Trump nor Joe Biden is King George.

2024 was already a messed-up election year. Like, I suspect, a lot of American voters, I’m not pleased with the choices put forward by either major political party this year (and no, the major third-party alternative this year is not a viable alternative). I do not want another chaotic four years for Trump in office. I worry that Biden is not physically up to another four years. I wish both parties had passed the baton on to newer leaders.

And maybe Joe will still get in his right mind and pull the plug on his ambitions, despite all signs to the contrary. With the assassination attempt and the convention opening today, it is too late, but I almost wish that there had been a grand bargain between both old men—for the good of the country, let’s step aside.

Well, too bad that can't happen (and really, couldn't given the alpha male personas of both men).

I had planned in June to watch the presidential debate and immediately blog about it. But afterwards, I was in such a funk that I had nothing to say. While I think the moderators did OK given the format, the candidates were both different kinds of nightmares.

I am a “never Trump” fellow—his first term and his actions as his term came to close, proved to me beyond a shadow of a doubt he should never be in power again. So, it was very discouraging to see old Joe Biden, slack mouthed, verbally struggling in the debate as Trump spouted nonsense and lies. President Biden was never the best of speakers, and the debate alone is not the full story or his presidency, but still, he was there with his flaws for us all to see. And most of us wanted him to realize that his time has passed.

Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, who moderated CNN's debate.

Anyway, I think there are deep problems in our democracy, but we must fix this plane while we are flying in it. And one point about that plane that we should agree on—messed up as it is, no one individual has the right to shoot it down. Yes, I want all kind of reforms to make our democracy more effective. No, I don’t think it’s so defective that shooting anybody to “fix” it makes any sense.

Glad you were only injured, and not badly, Mr. Trump. I do sincerely wish to see you defeated. Yet, I sincerely also don’t wish to see you harmed.

And in the meantime, in his own slow, feeble way, Joe Biden was right when he spoke July 14. Violence should have no place in American politics. We need to disagree, yet preserve the capacity to still talk with each other.

On that, I hope, most of use can agree.

Not a Sham Trial, but It’s Still a Sham Shame

Donald Trump speaks in Detroit, Michigan on June 15, 2024. Image from Wikimedia Commons by Gage Skidmore.

On May 30, something historic happened—a New York jury found former President Donald J. Trump guilty as charged on 34 felony charges. And yet this week, an Iowa Poll showed half of Iowa voters are still firmly loyal to Trump.

I can’t say that I’m shocked. Trump, narrowly elected president in 2016 despite losing the popular vote, has always been a unique political figure. He seemed and still seems, to me, to be wildly unqualified to be President, both by experience and temperament, and his chaotic presidency, in my mind, bore that out. A President whose pandemic response includes recommending ingesting or injecting bleach does not represent the kind of leader a democratic country should aspire to have.

Yet, a majority in my state and close to half of the national electorate are firmly in his camp. Since his nomination and election in 2016, and even after his 2020 defeat, Trump has reshaped the Republican Party until, today, the GOP seems to be a weird cult of personality. Trump famously said in 2016 that he could literally shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and it wouldn’t cost him votes—the events of 2024 seems to bear out that he was not that far off the mark.

Image from web site Informed Opinion, link below.

Indeed, a local newspaper columnist, who I rarely agree with on anything, wrote that Trump’s conviction wouldn’t hurt him, while Hunter Biden’s legal troubles would be an ongoing drag for President Joe Biden.

As a logical outcome, that’s BS. But I think she has an interesting point—politics is always as much about emotions and feelings as it is about rationality, and the Trump has an amazing ability to play on the emotions of his followers. He’s a fighter who will always punches back and never acts as if a blow has landed, an attribute his supporters love. Also, as commentators Shari Gradon and Sarah Neville noted on the web site “Informed Opinion” back in 2016, Trump was and is a master at the art of selling—keeping his message simple, repeating outrageous and memorable points to draw attention, speaking directly with his audience, avoiding any complex ideas.

Fair enough, but I think he’s not just a master seller, he’s something darker.

But first, an aside. Hunter Biden is not running for any public office. He is a drug addict with a complicated, messed up life. His being a convicted felon based on gun charges related to his drug convictions doesn’t put him in the same category of crime boss as Donald Trump, who has a history of running both his companies and his political campaigns with zero regard for conventions of behavior, regular political practice or the rule of law.

And Hunter Biden’s legal entanglements, to my mind, probably do disqualify him for higher office, as Trump’s criminal convictions and indictment should disqualify him—“disqualify” in this case not being a legal status, but just how sane public opinion should work. But, again, Hunter isn’t Joe. The sins of Hunter Biden and the sins of Donald Trump are not equivalent.

On Jan. 12, 2017, President Barack Obama gave Vice President Joe Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom. An emotional Joe walks back to his family, including his son Hunter, at the ceremony. Image from Wikimedia Commons, official White House picture by Pete Souza.

Back to my main point—which is my worry about Trump’s popularity and what it means. We are on a knife’s edge in 2024. The petulant un-penitent convicted criminal who the GOP is hell bent on renominating for the highest office in the country is running a campaign of grievance and revenge, based on many sham points.

The horse won’t just be loose in the hospital—we already have seen this show before and we shouldn’t have to suffer through a sequel.

Why is Trump so popular? Well, I don’t pretend to fully know, but I think it’s partly because his fans feel the same kinds of pain, in some ways, that fuel the Trump rage. The GOP has become the party of anti-modernity, of anti-science, of an imagined ideal past that “enemies” of “America” have destroyed. Trump skillfully manipulates and amplifies his audience’s fears.

I saw a meme in June on Facebook from a Trump fan that said something like: “Jesus was convicted in a sham trial, too, and I still follow Him.” Well, Trump was convicted in a rather dull, normal trial using regular legal checks and balances. Trump was found guilty by a jury of citizens in the city where he committed his crimes. That he would pay off a porn star and then illegally lie about the payments seems so mundane, so unsurprising, so Trumpy, that calling that conviction a “sham” is itself rather shameful (sham-ful?). The trial of Jesus didn’t have a jury, Christ didn’t hire an expensive team of lawyers. Jesus didn’t commit financial fraud and didn’t run his enterprise for years as a profit-seeking criminal cartel.

It's weird to have to say it, but Trump and Jesus are not comparable figures, nor were their trials comparable events. Saying so is even more of a sham than equating Hunter and Donald.

Yet, Trump persists and is persistently popular. He uses fear the way a rock star uses a sick bass line or catchy guitar riff. His main talent is a twisted yet effective genre of communication.

It is the style of communication that a particular kind of leader has used in the past. See what this YouTube PBS commentator says:

Dr. Erica Brozovsky never mentions Donald Trump and isn’t engaging in political commentary. And the destructive “us” vs. “them” discourse she refers to in the video isn’t the sole property of the political right. The left, too, can play on fear and create an us vs them echo chamber. But still, when I watched her video this week, I was struck at how well this analysis helps me to try to understand an aspect of Trump’s communication.

To me, clearly, he is a cult leader.

And my representative in Congress, my two senators, my governor—they’re thoroughly in the cult. Even the attorney general of Iowa shamed herself and her office by flying to New York to join the sham chorus of Trump supporters decrying Trump’s prosecution.

In an era where we want warning labels on social media for young people (because teens care so much about warnings from adults), we as a culture need a warning about our information sources and our politics.

Wake up, America. It’s not the Trump trial that was a sham. Trump himself is the sham, a wizard behind the curtain performing for the masses. We have met the enemy, and he-she is us when we allow ourselves to join the True Believers. You, half of the body politic, are in some weird fevered dream, listening to the Dear Leader, taking leave of your senses.

The weird orange wizard of wrathful words is a fake, a sham. And to those people who aren’t in it, a cult typically seems like a scary thing. I’m a bit afraid.

How British Characters Get Dead: Politely

Image of characters in “MidSomer Murders” from https://midsomermurders.fandom.com/wiki/Midsomer_Murders

 

My wife and I recently have been enjoying a 20-year-old British TV show, “MidSomer Murders.” MidSomer, which I had incorrectly re-wrote in my mind as “Midsummer,” it appears, is a county in England, full of villages with rich, interesting, aroused, murderous people.

It’s entertaining on several levels. For one thing, compared to most American crime shows, the show demands a lot of its viewer in terms of trying to follow multiple characters and multiple, convoluted clues. Frankly, even the creators got sometimes sidetracked—in one episode we watched, there seemed to be four murders, three of which were solved and one of which was forgotten.

And then there are the character types that the show uses, which are significantly different than characters seen in American TV crime shows:

• Horny old ladies. Lots of suggestive looks and double entendres from gray hairs who clearly aren’t yet done.

• Horny middle-aged people. Hollywood acts as if everybody who is an object of desire is 20-something and hot. MidSomer Murders acts as if everybody is 40 or 50, and mildly attractive, and very hot to trot.

• Weird, dysfunctional families. Way more brothers and sisters or people who are brothers and sisters and don’t know it who deliberately or accidentally ending up, well, you know. Yikes! Everybody is horny. Watch out for the vicars, too.

• Killers with strange, obscure motives. Maybe taking revenge for the other crime that happened 120 years ago. Sometimes there’s a slightly supernatural twist—a ghost or “second sight.” Sometimes, the jilted wife is enraged because the husband’s lover has refused him and yet he still loves her and somehow that justifies killing some third party. Motives tend to be a bit complex in this universe.

• Children who are not always cute and cuddly. They often are up to their own nefarious deeds. Facts.

There are also the British settings. Spooky, foggy woods. Old houses. Big old barns. Ancient churches. Broken down trailers/train cars/shacks that some old hermit occupies, sometimes as victim, sometimes as killer, sometimes as weird antihero.

Then there are the recurring characters in the series—Chief Inspector Barnaby and sidekick (there have been more than one). He of the heavy gorilla gate, walking like a tired linebacker through murder scenes, musing to his sidekick about when he is being lied to or who is to be trusted—always, in the end, figuring it out.

The Barnaby family, from http://midsomermurders.org/fitmurder.htm

She’s not in every episode, but we’re both fond of the inspector’s daughter, who adds some levity to the show. And there are jokes about Mrs. Barnaby, portrayed as an intelligent woman who totally lacks culinary skills (her terrible cooking is an ongoing joke of the series).

And then there are the murders, the weird, entertaining, strange English slaughters. Is the murder rate so low in England that English writes have some trouble understanding how murder works? There are a fair number of shootings, despite strict gun law, but often the murders are overly creative, weirdly complicated and seem like enormous gambles—if you shove the old guy over the edge of the bridge and he falls 5 feet into the shallow stream, how can you be so sure death will be the result? The killers are really lucky in this show.

A typical murder scene: There have been several people in the bell ringing choir or lollypop guild or some other select group, found over the past couple of days with skulls bashed in (or burned inside an effigy or shot at a distance with a target arrow neatly through the heart—don’t he British have any hunting arrows?). Yet, victim number three in the targeted group hears a suspicious noise in the West Wing. She puts on her dressing gown and gingerly pads down the hall, oblivious to the spooky music playing. Suddenly, from behind, we can see the candlestick—odd that, on edge as she should be, she didn’t sense someone walking behind her—and, after she turns and stands still with a frightened look, wham.

Well, a hard clock to the noggin will do it. Yet, so often, the victim sees the murderer brandishing said candlestick, and yet just stands there, a slightly surprised look on their face, awaiting the right moment in the musical score for the big swing. So polite and cooperative, these English murder victims.

In one episode, an antique dealer enters his establishment, packed full of stuff. Far above him, a desk is slowly pushed off of an edge. He stares blankly upward, watching gravity perform its inevitable function. Step to the side? Lift arms to shield head? No, that would be rude—it’s so much more polite to just stand there and wait for the blow, because, well, British.

We’re in the an early season of the series, and my wife has seen more of the shows than I have (a retired person has more evenings free for TV viewing than an employed professor does). I know from looking online that this long-running series, which began in 1997 and was still going on in 2023, goes through a number of cast and character changes, so the current inspector Barnaby may not be forever, even if murderous and horny MidSomer County is.

We’ll have to see, but as we get to more modern times, more recent years, are the aged still randy? And do the murder victims still stand there and politely take it? One can only hope so.

What I Like and Disliked Exploring 2019 Dora Movie

On the recommendation of a family member, I checked out a DVD of “Dora the Explorer: The Lost City of Gold” from the Marion Public Library.

The plan was to watch it with a grandson who was staying with us that weekend, but the second-grader rejected that option, claiming that Dora and Boots are a menace to society (there is no reason—he’s a second grader), instead preferring “Muppets Treasure Island.” It was, all things considered, a reasonable choice, and the Muppet movie, which draws from classic literature, was better than the Dora movie, drawn from an old TV show.

I watched Dora on my own last night.

The family member who recommended Dora didn’t claim it was a great film, merely that it was fun to see a live actor behaving like Dora, especially when the scene shifts to Dora’s high school years in LA. On that criterion, I would say Dora hit its mark. It playfully portrayed a blend of a cartoon universe with what would happen if that universe intersected the real world.

In particular, I had never seen Isabela Moner, who plays the teen Dora, before—and I think she does a fine job, believably inhabiting the persona of an improbably upbeat cartoon teenager from the jungle suddenly thrust into the jungle of American high school.

Image from Paramount Pictures Dora page.

The film was also deeply flawed. It set up too many pointless action sequences, as modern movies have a tendency to do. Many of the supporting character were thin as cardboard. The teens in LA were trope teens, with the “popular girl” improbably being roped along on the jungle adventure just to provide a wholly unbelievable romance with poor Diego.

At least, and I am grateful for this, Dora herself, while she meets a boy who becomes her friend, is not on the hunt for any boyfriend.

Any movie of this sort is best if it has an interesting villain—think of Tim Curry as Long John Silver in the aforementioned Muppet movie. Sadly, this is one goal the Dora movie doesn’t meet, with the villainous twist being totally unsurprising and the villain’s character and motivations being way too cartoonish.

Still, this flick is an homage to a cartoon. I’ve only seen snippets of the cartoon, but I suspect a fan who grew up on Dora would find this update fun.

And, even if would have liked more depth of character and believable creativity in the plot, I found this film watchable. There are some positive messages, some nice thoughts about the value of being true to yourself, some entertaining songs.

And Isabela Moner, who shows some promise as a young performer.

If I were rating this on the 5-point scale, I suppose I would consider it a lukewarm 3. I’m not going to rush back to the library to get it soon for a rewatch, but if the second grader suddenly decided that he’s a Dora fan and wants to see, well, OK.

The real winner here is the Marion Public Library. I know, it’s nice to get books at a library, too—but they seemed to have a very interesting DVD collection. Maybe I won’t be going back soon to explore Dora again—but there are other films there that I may watch this summer!