Aurelianus

@emzanotti And I thought 8-year PhDs were bad...

…15 year undergrad? what

@fedtanyl "We're barely getting by these days. If the kids' school raises tuition again, we may only be able to spend two weeks in Zurich this year!"

Yes it's indeed true that after savings and expenses you have nothing left over. That's true no matter what your income level is. Because you can only save or spend your money.

@SCweather_wx Same here outside Charleston. My dog was not happy about it on our walk.

You can see lightning from nearly 50 miles away in the Columbia area. It’s from storms all the way South of Orangeburg. Paw paw hollering heat lightning. It’s definitely been a Summer of old this year.

Incredible timing

@realBobbyMil “Someone capable of earning an advanced degree in philosophy likely has more to contribute to civilization than someone whose principal claim to distinction is owning a few car dealerships in Missouri.” There is no evidence for this.

@SeanTrende In a day and age where people are highly skeptical and prone to believing outlandish ideas, we can’t afford to have screwups like this. To those who care, this is all the evidence they need.

The correct position, imo, has always been that fraud and administrative screwups happen, are hard to detect, and are worth taking seriously, but we have no real evidence of widespread fraud on the scale that Trump has been talking about for a decade now.

Many of the right-wing criticisms of The Odyssey are miscast. Yes, Nolan modernizes Odysseus for a contemporary audience, but what was he supposed to do? Was he really supposed to show, among other things, the mythical Greek hero slaughtering unarmed suitors, ordering the execution of the household maids (after forcing them to clean up the gore from the massacre of suitors), sleeping around with nymphs, and abducting women from Cicones? And we are supposed to believe that these gaps are offenses *against Western civilization*? That stringing up enslaved women by a ship’s cable or physical intimacy with a witch are what made the West great, such that it speaks to Nolan’s hostility to our own culture that he left them out? Please. Now, the director does significantly soften Odysseus in ways that I think go too far, but, as has been widely noted, Nolan changes him in a generally in Christian direction, which isn’t anti-Western, either. By the way, Nolan also toughens up Odysseus for a modern audience by not showing him repeatedly crying. If he had, he surely would have been accused of feminizing Odysseus, when the weeping is in the original. At one point, when he hears the songs of the Trojan War, he breaks down like a bereaved widow—i.e., cries like a girl. The thing about The Odyssey being foundational to the Western literary tradition is that … it’s foundational to the Western literary tradition. There are all sorts of interpretations of Odysseus that derive from that tradition, ranging from Sophocles, to Virgil, to Dante, to Tennyson. It’s the last, as Spencer Klavan has pointed out (in his voluminous and brilliant commentary on the movie) that informs the very ending, with Odysseus setting out for yet another voyage. In this, Odysseus is the very embodiment of the questing, endlessly curious spirit of Western culture that has forged so many new discoveries and done so much to transform the human condition. As Tennyson puts it at the end of his poem: Come, my friends, 'T is not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. Here is the ambition and drive of every great explorer, and one of the best and most important elements of our culture. That Nolan makes this quality of Odysseus the punctuation mark of his film is another reason to appreciate his achievement.

@billybinion People are dragging her because they don't believe she's sincere.

People are dragging her for this, but Murkowski's explanation for voting against the SAVE America Act makes total sense. She's offered several amendments & nothing has changed, because Congress is theater. The legislation sounds like a mess.

@chriswithans People have become convinced that they can't be happy or do enjoyable things while working.

I don't understand the people who are doing the "Financial Independence Retire Early" program who make ~$200,000 a year and are planning to walk away from that consistent annual income at age 40 or whatever. That's crazy. It is not ever easy to make that much money. I don't care who you are. If you make that much money and it's a good job, you keep doing it for as long as you can. You probably get plenty of vacation and time off too so I doubt you feel "overworked."

@SeanTrende Some of them are terrified of that 15%, though

I mean the thing is, even if the post below is true, that 85% of academics should be furious at the 15% or so scholar-activists who can't keep things under control

@chriswithans That's why the weekend numbers are called estimates.

The Odyssey 🤝 Biden’s Bureau of Labor Statistics Revising down their headline numbers after the fact and saying everything is fine This was reported as $124.5 million. Now the opening domestic weekend box office is official at just $123.5 million. They did this with the Mandalorian & Grogu too!

@emzanotti They believe ticket sales are faked, but random people posting on Reddit about how their IMAX theater was empty are compeltely believable.

Guys, this is getting weird, okay? Just…it’s okay to be wrong sometimes.

@5cavLive5matt3r @PaulTassi @Forbes I was just joking that haters of the movie would claim the rating is actually negative 90%.

@aurelianus1985 @PaulTassi @Forbes The verified and general (non-verified) audience ratings are 97% and 93% respectively. But even so, 90% would be pretty decent! And film criticism isn't like video games. Popular and professional reviews tend to generally track well together.

The Odyssey’s Record Rotten Tomatoes Audience Review Score Has Solidified via @forbes forbes.com/sites/paultass…

@sethjlevy The people who disliked Graham the most are just angry that they still can't seem to get rid of him even after he died.

I’m not from South Carolina. I can have my opinion. But in the end the people of South Carolina will decide.

@agraybee I feel like more attention was paid to how Brad Pitt looked than to how colorful the water was.

The attempts to salvage this forgotten movie are sending me. Imagine it's 2001 and there are people claiming the animated Lord of the Rings from the 70s is vastly superior to this new piece of kiwi crap.

@mattyglesias More proof that people need more hobbies in life.

"The Odyssey actually isn't popular" is my favorite new conspiracy theory.

@SCweather_wx We really need the rain. I'm getting tired of my farming dad bringing it up in every conversation.

The WPC going for big rain totals between now & the end of the weekend for the Carolinas & surrounding states. I think this really gets going Thursday onward. Some areas could see well over half a foot of rain.

@neontaster If he's an IMAX purist, his options in SC are limited. I think there are only 2. But yeah, he'll probably make a video that says some good things with particular emphasis on a few bad things to satisfy the negative viewers.

Shame he’s in South Carolina - the land of no movie theaters.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I believe that if he truly hated this movie, we would have known about it by now.

@CatholicSmark People just need to accept that the movie performed well in its opening weekend and move on with their lives.

It'll make good money. But I don't know if it makes a billion dollars. Whether that is a "success'" or a "failure" is based on your expectations. It had a pretty good first weekend. Not a spectacular one, but pretty good still makes you money!