In Which We Anticipate People Correcting Our Spelling of 'Wompa'

Unless you've spent the last several months hanging upside down in a wompa cave, you know that the latest installment in the "Star Wars" saga, "The Force Awakens," opens galaxy-wide this weekend. Thousands of people have already purchased their tickets, presumably worried the movie will open and close between midnight and 1:00 AM Friday.  I myself am decidedly less enthusiastic.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm certainly going to see the darn thing.  I've already decided that, if nothing else, it will form a lovely portion of my Jewish Christmas--an appetizer for the Chinese food, as it were.  But I find myself substantially less geeked out about the whole thing than I once would have been.  I rationalize my lassitude by claiming general disappointment with the last trilogy: Jar Jar Binks alone justifies any amount of disenchantment.  I also explain to anyone who will listen that I am at heart more Trek than Wars in my enthusiasms.  But if I'm being honest, I have to wonder whether this malaise is just one more sign that I've gotten 'gulp' old!

Then again, it's not like I'm rushing out to see "The Danish Girl," either.

In Which TERROR! TERROR! TRUMP! and--If You Stick Around to the End--a Nice Palate Cleanser

For the record, the front page, above-the-fold story in today's New York Times chronicled the terrorist attack on a hotel in Mali.  So, progress?

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In other-ish news, members and supporters of Al Qaeda and ISIS are squabbling like Republicans and Democrats over which political party is superior.  ISIS murders dozens in Paris, and Al Qaeda jeers the indiscriminate nature of the attacks; Al Qaeda, showing infinitely more restraint and decorum, attempts to weed out Muslims in its Mali killing spree, and no doubt ISIS rolls its collective eyes at the resulting minimized body count: Only twenty-something killed?  You call that jihad? The bickering has reached such a point that one disgusted supporter tweeted a plaintive, can't-we-all-just-get-along message: “I just wish we could all be brothers again&not argue."

Boys, boys, no need to fight: You're both a bunch of sociopathic barbarians.

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Speaking of sociopaths, Donald Trump is sort of backing off his call to create a national registry for Muslims.  I don't see why.  Sounds perfectly reasonable.  I mean, what could possibly go wrong?  We could keep it simple, too: Maybe just a little yellow crescent moon patch on the sleeve?

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Finally, let's end on a pleasant note.  I just saw this commercial for Campbell's soup.  I guess it's been out for awhile, but this is the first time I'd seen it--such are the perils of DVR'ing everything and fast-forwarding through commercials.  Anyway, in the ad, two men take turns feeding soup to a toddler.  As the first man brings the soup to the child's lips, he does his best Darth Vader interpretation, "Cooper, I AM your father."  Then, the second man, also Vadering, says, "No, Cooper, I am your father."  The image of an attractive gay couple raising an adorable child--and quoting "Star Wars," no less!--has predictably angered right-wing bluenoses, such as the activist "Million Moms" group, who fear the ad "normalizes" such an abhorrent lifestyle.  Relax, Moms!  The ad never explicitly states that the men are a gay couple: For all we know, the baby was conceived during a drunken three-way with the kid's coked out mother.

I'm here to help.

But I personally choose to think the ad does, in fact, "normalize" what to me has been perfectly normal for quite some time: The fact that same-sex couples are just as capable of being loving (if incredibly dorky) parents as their heterosexual counterparts.  And maybe this commercial will help some people reach the same conclusion.  So, progress.


I assume we are meant to conclude that this is a gay couple raising a child, and not that the child is the product of a drunken three-way.