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Dave Thomer@davethomer.bsky.social |
55 followers 214 following 838 posts
I teach kids about history and I hang out with my family. Still brainstorming on the profile pic and header. He/him
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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I kinda want to go back in time and find all the fans and/or critics who started talking about “filler” episodes and say “No, you fools! These are the secret sauce!”
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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I became a huge fan of Babylon 5 in the 90s b/c it didn’t reset to status quo each ep. But when I rewatched it recently I really valued the standalone episodes that let me get to know the characters and setting, so that I would care how the big plot affected them. I miss that balance.
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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I mean, given the number of texts I got from the campaign about that fundraiser, that’s a brutal statement.
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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The DVR was the first thing that really damaged my relationship with television by removing the sense of urgency to watch, then the existence of Netflix’s library finished the job. And a lot of me wishes the industry had found a way to repair that relationship.
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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Heh. I literally just closed the Legendary Edition. I am right at the beginning of the first game and very much would like to see some studio recapture the magic of the trilogy.
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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I kind of have the opposite sensation, I feel like the somewhat niche outlets I follow have been talking about Proj 2025 for months - John Oliver covered it last month - and then it feels like this week it suddenly broke into wider discussion. (Not disagreeing w/ your perception, just sharing mine.)
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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I started checking in again during the UK election b/c journalists there still seem pretty active in a way I haven’t found here. It did not inspire me to want to be there regularly. But I wonder if different niches experience it differently.
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Jill Weinberger
@jillybobww.bsky.social
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This is also a nice reminder that when conservatives say, "Judeo-Christian" they mean "Christian," because you know nobody at Project 2025, including the person who wrote "Judeo-Christian" below, means anything but Sunday when they talk about deciding what people can & should do on the Sabbath.
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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I was a HS senior for the 92 election, and I think about it a lot, because of the hype over the generational passing of the torch. It strikes me that there hasn't been a moment like that since, and in fact we moved backward.
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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The Gore clip is very short, but the episode is great. I'm a huge fan, and seeing all four members participate was amazing. (I never thought we'd see anything like the recent reunion.)
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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When Netflix's Song Exploder did an episode on Losing My Religion, it had a clip of Al Gore in 1992 (I believe at a rally with at least Stipe) saying "George Bush is out of time." (Obviously Gore & the band members are Boomers, but heck yeah those albums are core to my Gen X high school memories.)
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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US presidential campaigns take two years. Yes this is ridiculous. US campaigns are candidate-centric not party-centric. Each candidate builds operation from scratch. Harris would have an easier time than others b/c she is already part of Biden-Harris org but there would be issues.
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Taniel
@taniel.bsky.social
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in light of today’s results, this quote from last week stands out
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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For the most part, they do. The percentages of the vote that US left third parties get is a fraction of what smaller parties in UK & France got this week. What the US doesn’t have that they did is a large part of the center-right willing to vote center, center-left or left to stop far right.
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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Yep. I think he writes good banter and the one thing I think he wrote non-cynically in the three shows I watched (Sports Night, West Wing, Studio 60) was male friendship. It took longer for me to notice his weaker points and for them to outweigh the strengths for me.
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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Yep. I was agreeing with your point - in the first season I thought the idealism was tempered by a pragmatism, in the beginning of the second I came to see the idealism as a veneer masking cynicism, and lost most of my interest in the show.
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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I stopped regularly watching the show early in S2 when, after the whole Let Bartlet Be Bartlet arc and then the assassination attempt, the show did a midterms episode that just reset the status quo and said none of that mattered.
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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When @straczynski.bsky.social is cooking, I don't think any TV writer writes a better speech.
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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The plucked chicken camp including the series creator and showrunner!
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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In a sense, he did - there were lots of script doctors on the prequels, including Tom Stoppard - but ultimately he was both the director and the guy putting up the money, so the people he delegated to were going to give him what he wanted.
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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I sure as heck think Obama understood that even if you didn’t. You don’t have to keep laying out the vision for a better US and the case for it if you think it’s beyond questioning. The arc doesn’t bend itself.
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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If there were a textbook for writing television series, the Londo and G’Kar arcs would warrant their own chapter.
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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I attended Catholic school and I teach kids in a public school. Teaching kids about different religions as part of world history or philosophy classes has never been a problem for me; it’s obviously different than the distinct religion (ie Catholicism) classes I took in HS.
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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I am currently trying to organize the stuff in my basement rec room (wreck room?) and I feel this in my bones.
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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It's one of the few examples in 21st century media of a terrible business plan that seemed to have positive effects for many people, not including probably the TV stations that actually had to air the shows.
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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Have you seen the John Mulaney routine from the Kid Gorgeous special?
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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I've been fascinated that in the UK, parliamentary elections seem to be much more of a team effort than a series of parallel individual projects. This story mentions that candidates in some constituencies are being asked to stop campaigning for themselves and go help other candidates w/ better odds.
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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It is the only one I have not seen, and I feel bad that Ron Howard is sort of collateral damage in the whole mess.
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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Yeah. And I don’t want to overlearn the lessons of one election but 2020 was very much on my mind. Biden and Shapiro won but two other statewide Dems lost, including an incumbent Treasurer I thought was doing good work.
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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I live in Philly and that was very much on my mind, and likely a big reason he was an also-ran in that election even as it helped raise his statewide profile.
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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Lynne co-produced the album and co-wrote three tracks on it, yeah.
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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George Harrison had just had a comeback to top 40 radio, although it seems he had the idea while he was still recording that album.
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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I have very weird feelings about where I stand on Last Jedi that I think come down to how I view the movie’s objectives vs. its execution.
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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In the original Constitution of 1787, citizens had a direct vote for only one half of the legislative branch. There’s been a widening view of direct elections since. I think judges are last to be reached by this b/c judging is seen as a more technical task that citizens are less equipped to evaluate
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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I’ll spare you my diatribe on how I think Johnson totally botched making that point even before the Abrams nonsense. 😀
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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Although there might be some interesting stories in the difference between "last good Force user" and "last of the Jedi."
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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I think he was a different order that had a different relationship with the Force - which is a cool idea! - but I would have to delve deeper in to the background info to be sure.
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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That's not the material I remember reading, but I could be wrong. (Also there could be some difference in interpretation over raising children vs. conceiving them.) The relationship that produced the kids would be enough to get him expelled, although we could discuss how well they kept that secret.
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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A huge thing that disappoints me about post-RotJ, post-prequel storytelling is that there are now all of these surviving Force users like her (plus Force ghosts) who should be able to tell Luke how the Jedi lost the plot, but either no one does or he ignores it all until his temple gets sacked.
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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Absolutely. At the same time, no amount of practice is going to let me hit a major league fastball. And there's probably no "right" or even consistent answer to how hard all the Jedi stuff we see is. Like, if I study and train, maybe I get better reflexes but can't do Jedi leaps.
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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I haven't watched Ahsoka or Rebels (it's on my to do list) but I had heard that, & it sounds cool. I'm interested in whether they say anything about how Sabine & Ezra were different, if indeed they are different in any meaningful way. (Correct me if I'm wrong - Ahsoka never rejoins the Jedi, right?)
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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I see that influence as well. The prequel Republic/Plato's Republic thing might be in my head. But guardians of justice can't form attachments, including family bonds; talented children are taken from their families to be trained as guardians; democracy collapses to despotism all jumped out at me.
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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Jedi aren't prohibited from having children in the films, they're prohibited from having attachments. (I don't know if the Clone Wars series went into more detail.) I don't know if it's coincidence, but the Jedi are VERY like the guardians in Plato's Republic, and there's a eugenics aspect there.
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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I just don’t get that sense. Being a Jedi isn’t the only way to be in touch with the Force, and you can be strong enough in the Force to train as a Jedi without being part of a particular family or bloodline - that’s why the Jedi have Plato’s child separation policy!
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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It doesn’t bother me because I think they were already there by “I want to learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi like my father.” I do tend to think of it the way the old RPG did - everyone is connected to the Force, some people are better than others at tapping into that connection.
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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The idea that some people are physically more able to use the Force than others is established at least by Return of the Jedi and certainly hinted at in the original movie. Luke’s ability to use the Force is depicted as natural and unusual, not merely a result of study.
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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I am pro democracy (in the John Dewey democracy-as-way-of-living sense, not just elections) and one of the things that democratic advocates need to reckon with is the number of people who - often for good reasons - do not want to exert time or energy to understand or get involved with politics.
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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I think one challenge the show is going to have as it goes on is introducing new people & stories from the town while also trying to check in with the people that the audience has already connected to, especially if they're giving themselves less time to edit.
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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The women aren't playing in the US until July and they're going to be on the West Coast, not in Philly. I can't find any local coverage of a Wrexham visit to Philly in 2024, but lots of it for 2023. Plus Millie came to Philly in 2023. twitter.com/MillieTippin...
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Dave Thomer
@davethomer.bsky.social
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I like the show quite a bit and as a Philly resident I do appreciate that the city probably has the third most screen time behind Wrexham and LA. :) I think the Rocky statue shots in the S3 finale were taken during the US tour we saw at the start of S3, since the team did come to Philly then.
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