Virtually every film in modern memory ends with some variation of the same disclaimer: “This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.” The cut-and-paste legal rider must be the most boring thing in every movie that features it. Who knew its origins were so lurid?
For that bit of boilerplate, we can indirectly thank none other than Grigori Rasputin, the famously hard-to-assassinate Russian mystic and intimate of the last, doomed Romanovs. It all started when an exiled Russian prince sued MGM in 1933 over the studio’s Rasputin biopic, claiming that the American production did not accurately depict Rasputin’s murder. And the prince ought to have known, having murdered him.
I had no idea this traced back to a specific historical event.
I watched The Soul of a Cyclist on my flight home today. It’s a very lovely documentary about people who like to ride vintage bikes, shot in Portugal and England. Recommendended for bike lovers just looking for something charming to watch.
But in Gilded Ages — such as the one that dominated the turn of the 20th century and the one we’re now in — the ultra-rich abandon such humility. The linkages between wealth and power becomes apparent for all to see. Conspicuous consumption becomes the handmaiden of conspicuous clout.
In such times, the wealthy brag about their access to politicians, talk openly about how many tens of millions of dollars they’ve donated to campaigns and about the “return” on these “investments,” and want everyone to know how they’ve turned their affluence into influence and their influence into even more affluence.
Ultimately, these insults to democracy — delivered by the new oligarchs shamelessly, openly, and arrogantly — go too far. They invite a backlash.
This was an episode about the climate emergency, but it was also an episode about why it’s important to let ourselves feel the anger, the sadness, and the grief necesssry to process the captured nature of the systems that govern us, and how processing those feelings is necessary to have the energy and wherewithal to take action and move forward.
Finished reading: Little Brother by Cory Doctorow 📚
I wish I found this book when I was younger. I didn’t truly understand public-private key encryption until I read Cryptonomicon. This was an easier explanation.
More importantly, this book is grounded in the defense of civil rights.
