The Invisible Counterpoint

‪ Re: In the midst of the Greece turmoil, his shared feelings are of particular significance to make sense of the deep psychohistorical factors underlying the current crisis. Three years ago, in an ABC News 24 interview by Leigh Sales, Varoufakis stated: ‬ ‪ This is our Great Depression. Not only in an economic sense, but also in a psychological sense. Greeks are in a catatonic state. One moment in a state of rage, another, this is a typical case of manic depression. There are no prospects. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. There are sacrifices, but nobody gets a feeling that these are sacrifices that take the form of some kind of investment in turning the corner. This is the problem when you are stuck in a Eurozone which is really badly designed, which is collapsing and which does not give opportunities to its flimsier parts to escape through some kind of redemptive crisis[2]. ‬ ‪ Such a public statement carries strong emotional overtones resulting from the close in...

Marc-Andre Cotton wrote (originally posted on  regard conscient.net , and permission granted to repost) :  “S ince a clear majority of British citizens decided to leave the European Union on June 23, heated comments have been voiced. According to  The Financial Times,  their largely Europhile parliament will be forced to drag the country into   “unsplendid isolation” as Britain is heading for “a quite probable recession”   (Philip Stephens,  “Britain is starting to imitate Greece” ,  Financial Times , 06/30/2016). Not surprisingly,  The Spectator —where former Mayor of London and ‘Vote Leave’ campaigner Boris Johnson once worked as a journalist—holds a different view. Waving reassuring news as a falling pound attracts tourists and sucks in investment, the conservative weekly neologized Brexit “the greatest opportunity ever handed to a government by an electorate” ( “Business confidence is returning to Brexit Britain” ,  The Spe...

Nocturnal Animals There is no point in living if you can't quit the feeling you shamed yourself by being weak when you could have been strong to terror -- this is the point of "Nocturnal Animals." In fact, if you die immediately after showing you're not such a hapless fluff after all, just showing you could be strong before your worst tormentor is such a victory that that ostensibly sad fate of your body being slowly besmirched into dust, cast amongst the other wilderness rocks and stones, really doesn't matter so much. Presumably you die with your memories of you as a strong drawn sword, smacking down the threatening dragon, basically determining the nature of your spirit in the hereafter: this is what you surely mostly were deep down the whole time, even if it took this particular moment to buck it out into the open. Okay, I suppose I can sorta accept that... there's nothing like seeing yourself finally as a perpetrator when you've seen yourself ...

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Eddie Redmayne's Newt presents himself as respectful and sometimes even demure, but though there are honest aspects to both of these qualities what he mostly is matches best with the "troublemaker" moniker that was attached to him during his time at Hogwarts. He sees the world as requiring vast improvement  -- foremost, a need to encourage tolerance of strange animals amongst his fellow wizards, but since we also see him advocate against anti-miscegenation laws, really for the whole wallop of progressive causes -- and sees himself as a potential chief agent for change. In New York, he finds himself intertwined with someone who is not exactly his equal. This is Jacob, who unlike Newt never went to any kind of special school, is not pursuing advanced studies in the scientific art of magic creature naturalism, and is, rather, mislaid into a terribly depressing, isolated life working in a canning factory -- a job, a...

Arrival 
When a film starts off with the a lonely lead female character drinking a lot of wine, in a lake house that's diffusely lit and morose in tone but also flatteringly palatial, don't be surprised if aliens show up at the planet's door that she proves the only one who's up to actually communicating with them. She's been abandoned of the love of her daughter, of her husband, and her students don't properly appreciate her genius -- what with their twitter and Facebook and whatnot -- and despite what she would show you of her outward successful academic endeavours, she's mostly a sea of self-involvement. What the aliens do, is show just how wrong the whole planet has been to ignore and deprive her -- even if it hasn't so deprived her of a plush university job (but it's not Berkeley, because mr. know-nothing, so-and-so "big professor" has fooled the world into thinking he's such hot holy shit!), all the career ac...