I haven’t done a film roundup in a while. As you know, the recent articles here have been focused on subjects of more gravity. The following represent the most recent “new” movies I’ve seen.
What You First Create, You Must Then Defend
Some people think that one big home run will set them on easy street for life. They think that when they accomplish something, the game is essentially finished, and they can move on to something else. But the world doesn’t really work that way. Very often, the reward of labor is more labor: but the new work is different in character from the old. The creative labor of invention is replaced by the fighting labor of preservation. We can see an example of this principle in the career of Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone.
Why Worrying Is Pointless
For a good part of my life I used to worry excessively about things. When I was in college I worried about keeping up my grade point average and being able to complete Marine Corps Officer Candidate School; when I was on active duty I worried about doing my job well; when I started my law practice many years ago I worried about all the various thing related to establishing oneself in one’s profession. And there are other examples of worrying that I need not rattle off here. All of this worry, all of this stress, was largely self-inflicted.
“Italy Is Excellent In All Things”
The Roman engineer and architect Vitruvius believed that one of Italy’s special gifts was its geographical location. The nation was so situated, he believed, to combine the positive aspects of both cool and warm climates. In his treatise De Architectura (VI.11), he notes that
The Continued Progress Of The Plutocratic Insurgency (Podcast)
This podcast accompanies my most recent article. In it, we explore two additional dimensions of the “plutocratic insurgency”: (1) the techno-palaces of the global elite, and (2) the creeping confiscation of public lands by private actors. The end result of these two trends is to accelerate the already destabilizing wealth imbalances in societies across the globe.
“Dark Globalization”: The New Dimensions And Continued Progress Of The Plutocratic Insurgency
We have previous discussed in these pages a new and largely ignored form of insurgency warfare: the globalized elite’s coordinated, targeted efforts to dispossess the general public. Dr. Robert Bunker (on the staff of the US Army War College) and Pamela Bunker coined the term “plutocratic insurgency” to describe this novel form of warfare. In a brilliant series of articles published on the Small Wars Journal website, Bunker has made a compelling case that what he calls “extra-sovereign actors” (i.e., globalized elites moving themselves and their capital freely across international boundaries) have been permitted to wage non-traditional warfare against the societies in which they operate.
They Stood Fast: The Loss Of H.M.S. “Birkenhead”
A reader of Rudyard Kipling’s collected verse may find his 1893 poem “Soldier an’ Sailor Too.” It contains the following lines:
Getting A Point Across With Tact And Authority
One feature of great men is that they generally know how to handle themselves in a variety of situations. They tend to be flexible and agile; they will know when to scold, when to chastise, when to use the velvet glove, and when to use the hammer. Only the experience of life can impart this kind of wisdom. But we can at least prepare ourselves in some ways. One of these ways is to read the letters of such men. See how they interact with their peers. Study how they solve various problems or issues that fall on their desks. You will spend a good part of your life “putting out fires” at work and at home, so you might as well learn from the masters.
Knowledge Cannot Be Confined Within Official Limits
Information is like a living organism; it expands to fill the container in which it is kept. Put some life form (it does not matter which) in some environment, and it will instinctively probe the outer limits of its habitat. Knowledge is like this, too. It can be suppressed for some time, but in the end, it cannot be held back forever. It always disseminates in one way or another. No matter how effective propaganda, official lies, and ideological correctness may seem, they can never hold back the tide of truth for an indefinite duration.
The Legal Merits Of The Michelle Carter “Texting Suicide” Appeal (Podcast)
In this podcast (a companion piece to my article posted here yesterday), we discuss the legal merits of Michelle Carter’s appeal of her involuntary manslaughter conviction in the notorious “texting suicide” trial.
What were the relevant issues in the case?
Was the conviction proper?
What is the likelihood of the conviction surviving appellate review?
Quintus Curtius 
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