Random Thoughts: Tom Brady's Retirement

Tweets from February, 2022:

• 2022-02-01: Local New York City TV station news announces Tom Brady's retirement. How a news story can be true but still slanted at the same time.
• 2022-02-01: One of my several daily emails from Donald Trump: "I have something important to tell you but you CANNOT share this with anyone." DON'T tell TFG, but I'm going to share. I can buy a lottery ticket for a lunch at Mar-a-Lago. Do any of these lotteries ever award anything to anyone?
• 2022-02-01: Gov. Abbott in nice weather and Gov. Abbott staring at a winter storm. Different stories then and now.
• 2022-02-02: Munich: The Edge of War (2022): Dramatization of Munich Conference on eve of WWII. Fictional characters and events turn it into a thriller and add suspense. Neville Chamberlain gets an overdue sympathetic treatment. Hitler is still a monster. Good acting throughout. B+
• 2022-02-02: Fact check: Quote tweeted by GOP congressman came from neo-Nazi convicted for child porn, not Voltaire. Uh oh. Pro-tip: If a quote from a famous historical figure sounds like it's perfect to make your point, it's probably fake.

After the jump, more random thoughts.

---

• 2022-02-03: Review: The Accommodation: Jim Schutze's 1986 classic history of race relations in Dallas, long out of print. From slavery to Jim Crow to the 1980s, a look at how Dallas is run. Eye-opening. A great read, a must read. Still with much to say about race relations today. A-
• 2022-02-05: One political party's understanding of "legitimate political discourse."
• 2022-02-05: I remember Harold Taft questioning the almost universal prediction of a snowmageddon. He said, "I just don't see it." He turned out to be right. Whether it helped his ratings with others or not, I trusted him above all others from then on. ,
• 2022-02-07: Don Magner is set to succeed Dan Johnson as Richardson City Manager. I would guess the decision as to who replaces Don Magner as Deputy would be the decision of Magner *after* he becomes City Manager. If it's a promotion from within, it's not too soon to start a betting pool.
• 2022-02-07: .@PhilipTKingston, what can be done about the Central Train in Richardson. It comes south through downtown Richardson, gets to the City of Dallas, and then just kind of stops. Something is needed to get it connected to the trails heading south in the City of Dallas.
• 2022-02-07: Donald Trump insists on reminding everyone every chance he gets that he lost, ie., that Biden is President and Trump isn't. If there were anyone I would have predicted would want to bury that historical fact as deeply as he could, it would have been Trump. Color me surprised.
• 2022-02-08: Retired pope asks pardon for abuse, but admits no wrongdoing. I don't want to tell a pope his business, but I thought mortal sins must first be confessed for the sinner to be granted absolution.
• 2022-02-08: Fargo - S01 (TV 2014): Winter in Bemidji, Minnesota, where a mousy insurance salesman accidentally hires a hit man. Dead bodies pile up as things go from bad to worse. Engrossing black comedy with a large cast of quirky characters. I can't think of a thing to improve it. A+,
• 2022-02-08: I lived seven decades without ever once considering that I need to have a generator in case the power goes out. Now my timeline is full of people in Texas showing off their new generators. Texas, where government pushes responsibility for basic services down to the homeowner.
• 2022-02-09: I've seen four references to Banyan Beckley as being brutalist architecture. What say you, @marklamster? "Brutalism is characterized by broad, angular expanses of solid material — often concrete — with minimal openings." ,
• 2022-02-11: Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021): Too many monsters/villains. Too many battles where no one wins, no one dies. Best part is the banter, at times sounding like a parody. Electro: "There's gotta be a Black Spider-Man out there somewhere." Needs more banter. Needs Miles Morales? B-,
• 2022-02-11: Wow. To get the President to retweet you. Must feel great.
• 2022-02-12: Final: Richardson 84, Lake Highlands 78. Thank you, RHS Magnet Communications Program, for livestreaming the big game. #txhshoops #txhsBB
• 2022-02-12: Aaron Rodgers wins 4th MVP award. Talk about having mixed-feelings. I'm a lifelong Packers fan, so it's great that a Packer won it, but does Aaron Rodgers have to be such a conspiracy-minded cheesehead?,
• 2022-02-12: Dallas GOP congressional candidate Brad Namdar accused of soliciting sex from escort. He's running to unseat Colin Allred. And he's been endorsed by Pete Sessions. Come on, GOP. Time to clean house.
• 2022-02-13: TIL: It's a costly mistake if your rotation stalls out during a twizzle.
• 2022-02-14: Drive My Car (2021): Japanese. Wife of stage actor/director dies suddenly. Husband deals with unanswered questions with help of a Chekhov play, fellow actors, and a young woman assigned to be his driver. The action is in their heads. Layers of symbolism. Sad. Wise. Powerful. A-,
• 2022-02-15: Super Bowl referee says no flag needed on controversial Tee Higgins touchdown. Despite the obvious "grab and twist and turn", referee defends no call. I hate that about the game. The refs determine the outcome as much as the players do.
• 2022-02-15: The Book of Boba Fett (TV 2021): Was a bounty hunter, now a crime boss on Tatooine, or maybe a frontier sheriff. We're never sure. Then we switch to the Mandalorian and Baby Yoda. Battle tactics are laughable. Plot is there to justify screen time for old Star Wars characters. C+,
• 2022-02-16: Death on the Nile (2022): Kenneth Branagh's homage to Agatha Christie. An old time whodunnit with no emotional stakes. Look elsewhere for an anti-colonialist message film. This is just a romp in 1937 Egypt with a bunch of rich foreigners played by a cast of rich celebrities. B+
• 2022-02-16: I met the mailman at our mailbox today. He handed over our first class mail, then reached into a separate basket of junk mail flyers and said I also get "some politics and an end-of-the-world prophecy." I asked him how I could tell the difference between them.
• 2022-02-17: Valieva choked back tears after the music to her program, Bolero" by Maurice Ravel, stopped playing." Well that explains it. A perfect "10" has already been awarded once for "Bolero". It's not happening again.
• 2022-02-17: Maybe it's OK if a librarian posts these two tweets in front of the books some adults don't want you to read. Supervisor Pat Herrity can't object to posting his own words, can he?
• 2022-02-17: I don't know what a "petard" is and I rarely use the word "hoist", but both words come to mind reading this story.
• 2022-02-18: Review: The Midnight Library: Woman attempts suicide. Between life and death, she's given the chance to see all the lives she might have lived. Does that rekindle her will to live? She does learn an important life lesson. Straightforward story. Not very deep. B-
• 2022-02-21: Why haven't Gov. Abbott and the Texas GOP pressured AG Ken Paxton to resign. They are only staining their own reputations. "The most basic qualifications of an attorney general are respect for truth and respect for the law. Ken Paxton has neither."
• 2022-02-21: Putin orders troops to Ukraine after recognizing separatist regions. Next the GOP will excuse Putin's invasion as "legitimate political discourse."
• 2022-02-22: Nightmare Alley (2021): Surprisingly, not a horror movie. A carnival grifter running a con as a mentalist sets his sights on richer marks until the stakes get deadly. The story arc is too pat, but the look and feel are superb. 1940s film noir just like the great movies of old. B+,
• 2022-02-22: Headline: "Man,51, eaten alive by a crocodile as he bathes in an Indonesian river." Why we don't visit our son in Jakarta more often.,
• 2022-02-23: Marry Me (2022): Rom-com with regular guy Owen Wilson and worldwide celebrity Jennifer Lopez. Implausible opposites-attract premise but the leads sell it, making suspension of disbelief possible. Predictable, sure, but easy to watch. J.Lo gets several singing opportunities. B-
• 2022-02-23: This truncated post on Nextdoor stopped me for a second: "I need a recommendation for a good and reasonably priced laundry/dry cleaner for my husband's dress..."
• 2022-02-23: 82,000 Texan deaths. Gov. Abbott thinks the best response to COVID-19 is to go about our business as if there is nothing to worry about.
• 2022-02-24: Just last week Gov. Abbott was pandering to right-wing parents with his promise of legislating parental rights. Now he's threatening to prosecute parents of trans children.
• 2022-02-24: Any chance that Freedom Convoy" headed to Washington DC. is going to protest at the Russian Embassy? No? I didn't think so. ",
• 2022-02-23: In 2021's James Bond film, "No Time to Die," Republicans cheered for Lyutsifer Safin.
• 2022-02-25: The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021): Skewers Jim Bakker, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell as frauds who care more about money and power than Jesus. Jessica Chastain's Tammy Faye is treated more sympathetically, more willing dupe who does care about people. She deserves Best Actress nom. B-
• 2022-02-26: Whew! Richardson Eagles win a nailbiter over Allen.
• 2022-02-26: Whew! Lake Highlands wins a nailbiter over Plano.
• 2022-02-26: Trump was impeached for this. But GOP Senators refused to convict him for his treachery. Now the world pays the price for that political calculation.
• 2022-02-27: In 2020, to curry favor with Trump, Cornyn and Cruz voted to block military sales to Ukraine. Don't believe them when they say they support Ukraine today. ,
• 2022-02-28: Girls5Eva (TV 2021): 4 members of a '90s girls group reunite to give fame another try. A TV sit-com where the 4 characters never jell. There's no reason to believe they were ever friends. The wit is forced, like jokes picked up from the rejects on the floor of a writers' room. C-