Privilege seems to be a serious problem in America. Or at least, a serious problem for wealthy liberal students at Ivy League universities.

I believe I have a solution.  I call it "Privilege Bingo."

The first day of classes, all the freshmen, er, freshpersons, um, freshperoffsprings, will gather on the quad with their bingo cards. Each winner will be accorded a prize to reduce xir privilege and give them first hand understanding of the difficulties the lesser classes less privileged beings face.

"BINGO!" Our first winner!  They will be deprived of all their scholarships and grant money, being required to work minimum wage jobs while wearing a placard proclaiming "I am a person of low privilege." The other students should be very careful not to microaggress them by offering tips or donations.

"BINGO!"  How would you like to be a single mom of a mixed race baby?  No?  Well, too bad!  You'll also be awarded pole dancing lessons. The bright side is you will be eligible for tips from upper classbeings, and cat calls on the street.

"BINGO!" And five cops come out, taze the winner while hurling insults at him/jer/it before dragging them off and roughing them up across the hood of the police car. They will then be stuffed into a cell for three days with no phone calls.  Assuming they're white, of course. They'll be convicted of felony resisting arrest so all their resumes will be properly humble.

"BINGO!" They win disfigurement with a belt sander and knives so others gaze on them and are horrified. They'll have to endure the stares of others.

"BINGO!"  Five Jersey goons will smash this person's legs with bats, so they're forced to use a wheelchair for the duration. To ensure the full measure, they'll be assigned to a third floor dorm with a shared bathroom. (Are shared bathrooms actually a thing in the Ivy League?  If not, they should be.)

"BINGO!"  This student wins the chance to write all their papers in Dgèrnésiais, with points deducted for spelling and grammar errors, to show them what it's like not to have common 6th grade literacy linguistic privilege.

"BINGO!"  Gang rape. With video.  This student is especially lucky, because the PTSD will affect all their studies for the year.  As a bonus, five rednecks will be assigned to follow them around and crack rape jokes.  If they're male, the jokes will be about turning "kwar."

This should improve the quality of education, with students deprived of unfair privilege and brought to a level playing field with their peers.

And remember: You can't spell "Privilege" without PIV.

 

 

"Homicide" is a legal finding of death, and not the same as "murder."

There are only five legal ways to die--homicide, suicide, accident, natural causes, and unknown.

A finding of "homicide" means the cause is known and applied by an outside agent. That is all. It confers no guilt upon any party.

If one dies during the commission of a crime, the criminals are deemed to have performed the act, since their actions led to it.

IOW, Garner murdered himself when he made the stupid decision to ignore 6 cops using physical means.

I disapprove of the event, but the nomenclature is descriptive, not accusative.

My ancestors knew this game. They were experts at it.

 

Rudyard Kipling

 /></div><center><h1 id=Dane-GeldA.D. 980-1016
It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation  To call upon a neighbour and to say: --"We invaded you last night--we are quite prepared to fight,  Unless you pay us cash to go away."And that is called asking for Dane-geld,  And the people who ask it explainThat you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld  And then  you'll get rid of the Dane!It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,  To puff and look important and to say: --"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.  We will therefore pay you cash to go away."And that is called paying the Dane-geld;  But we've  proved it again and  again,That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld  You never get rid of the Dane.It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,  For fear they should succumb and go astray;So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,  You will find it better policy to say: --"We never pay any-one Dane-geld,  No matter how trifling the cost;For the end of that game is oppression and shame,  And the nation that pays it is lost!"

As you gather from the title, this wasn't what I'd hoped.

First, we got punished for reserving for the midnight showing.  After that got booked nationwide, someone in production or distribution decided to open up earlier slots in the evening for all the people who didn't respond in time. So the latecomers managed to book earlier shows.

I'd hoped to see it on the Imax screen, but that was reserved for people doing the three movie marathon, and that was 8 hours I didn't want to sit in the theater.

So there were about a dozen of us in a standard theater. And the guy behind me kept practicing a tap dancing routine (literally) every two or three minutes (literally).  When I finally couldn't take it anymore and asked him to stop, he did.

On to the movie.

The problem with this section of the story is there's not a lot of character to discover, other than Thorin's fall, which was done well enough.  We have good character background on the others, and there's not much more to develop.

We did get to see the reveal of Sauron and the foreshadowing of the threat to come, and Saruman showed some depth, because Christopher %#$@ing Lee is awesome.

Laketown is too far from the mountain here, so rather than the refugees using the perfectly serviceable forest with game, timber, fresh water and nearby fish, they move up into the abandoned town across from the mountain, miles from anywhere, and are short of rations. Duh.

The battle was a huge mess, with some good scenes including the shield ramping, but otherwise was hack and slash from different POVs for an hour.  We've seen this before. The dwarves smashed, the elves shot and slashed, the men did what they could.

The cherry atop the turd was the resolution of the love arc between Fili and Tauriel.  Everyone saw it coming, and Jackson had a chance to NOT be cliche, and sold out.  Everyone was rolling their eyes and groaning, though some of that might have been the scenery protesting at being chewed.

It's one weak movie of six, but since it's the conclusion of this arc, it diminishes the entirety of The Hobbit.  They could have got as much material into two slightly longer movies, or they could have used this one to delve into more backstory, more detail on different fighting styles or overall strategy.

You're going to see it just to resolve the trilogy, but don't expect to be blown away.  It's once again "We need MOAR! special effects and mayhem or people won't watch!" sellout and cliche.