Dune 2021

   It came in today after a long wait.  It only covers the first half of the Frank Herbert novel.  It brings the story up thru Paul’s duel with Jamis, and meeting Chani.  I assume if this one gets good box office, they will do another one (or two) to bring the story to the end.  None of the names in the cast meant anything to me.  Paul Atreides looks like a skinny teenager, but tall. Looks to be about 19.   

   In the book Bene Gesserit Mother Moheim asks Jessica “is he not small for his age?”  Jessica replies that Paul is only 15 and Atreides are late gaining full size and strength.  Paul has a shaggy wavy haircut that is always falling in his eyes.  I would think a warrior prince, trained by the likes of Gurney Halleck, Thufir Hawat, Duncan Idaho, and Duke Leto would have adopted a shorter military hair style that was not so long as to allow his opponent in hand to hand combat grab his hair and tug on it.  Jessica comes across as awfully short, shorter than Paul where as Paul’s mother ought to be a bit taller than Paul.  She has a very plain face that makes me wonder why Duke Leto saw anything in her.  The Harkonnens, Duke Vladimir, Beast Rabban, and Feyd Ratha all look adequately villainous. 

   Few names are ever mentioned.  I am an old fan of Dune; I bought the hardback when it came out back in 1967.  I was able to figure out who was who, and remember some of the back story of each character, but if you have not read the book, you will find the movie confusing.  The plot pretty much follows the book. 

US Air Force asking for some strange things for 2023

 The Air Force wants to retire a bunch of aircraft.  21 A10’s, 33 F22 interceptors, 8 E3 Sentries, and some other stuff, total 150 aircraft to be “retired” otherwise known as “scrapped”.  The A10’s will be missed.  They are the only aircraft in the inventory that can fly low enough and slow enough for the pilots to see ground targets, like tanks, and then hit them.  The supersonic jet fighters are not good for this.  The Air Force is run by fighter pilots.  They all worry about what it would be like flying an A10 and get bounced by Migs.  Answer, you supply fighter escort to your bombers.  This was the lesson of WWII.  The fighter pilots seem have forgotten it. 

   The 33 F22 interceptors is a long and sad story.  The F22 is a very hot air-to-air interceptor.  Numerous writers, in Aviation Week and other places claim that one F22 can beat 4 or 5 of any other kind of fighter.  The original F22 program planned to build 400-500 of them.  They were expensive; the last and cheapest batch was still $80 million a plane.  The defense secretary back a few years ago decided that was too expensive and canceled the program at 182 aircraft. Now they want to scrap nearly 20% of the not very big force.  Back in the Viet Nam war my fighter wing lost 90 fighters in as many days.  Keeps that loss rate going and in 6 months we won’t have any F22s left. 

   The E3 Sentries are better known as Airborne Warning and Control AWACs for short.  An AWACs will warn our aircraft away from enemy fighters and vector our fighters onto the enemy.  They are in high demand all over the world.  Especially for a war against a first world enemy that has a real air force.  They are not so necessary going up against a third world power that lacks an air force. Which is the kind of enemy we have been engaging for many a year.

Colleges can cut expenses, a lot.

 Colleges could have students do the lighter work around campus, rake the leaves, shovel the snow, mow the grass, sweep the halls and classrooms, wash the dishes, set the tables, help in the kitchen.  We used to do that at my old high school, Westtown Friends School.  It worked out fine.  Westtown started the system during WWII when they could not hire anyone.  Each “work job” only took about an hour a day of student’s time.  With students doing a lot of the work, the buildings and grounds employees could be reduced to a whisper. 

  Colleges could get rid of all the “administrators”.  These employees don’t teach, they do nothing to educate students, but they all draw six figure salaries.  I have read that some colleges have as many administrators as professors.  I suppose administrators do various sorts of paperwork.  Should some agency demand that their paper work be turned in on time, the college should mail them a nice form letter saying “we are working on it” as politely and vaguely as possible.  The only paper work that has to be accomplished is report cards (a faculty responsibility) and the college catalog listing all the courses, their times, and the credits and courses required for graduation in all of the different majors.

College Loans are getting tough.

 Since the college loan system was put in, college tuition has risen thru the roof.  Any time any college feels it needs more money, it raises tuition.  The students, who have already signed tremendous loans, just grumble and sign again.  They have sunk so much money into their college educations that they will sign for another few thousand bucks and just grumble about it. 

    One thing we could do now.  All the money spent on college is wasted if the student flunks out and does not graduate.  We ought to require colleges to pay off the student loans of those who flunk out and don’t graduate.  This would sharpen up the college admissions offices to only admit students who can do the work.  Right now colleges admit just about anybody because the students that don’t make it don’t cost the college anything.  If the colleges were responsible for paying off the student loans of those who do not graduate, they would be much more cautious about admitting marginal students. 

Are there any good new movies?

 I was cruising Netflix today , the 100 most popular movies rented from Netflix.  Arghh.  They all looked boring except for Addams Family 2.  I gave the Addams a rent but I worry that it will be terrible when it gets here.  I am a movie buff, I have movies on VHS and DVD going back to the 1940s.  The new crop doesn't measure up.  Hollywood movies used to be world wide famous.  They helped us win WWII and the Cold War.  This current batch won't do anything that good. 

Do Adults ever buy hardback fiction to read themselves?

   Is anyone writing decent adult fiction anymore?  I look at the best selling hardback fiction in the Wall St Journal weekend edition.  Most weeks two or three classic Dr. Seuss books and some other children’s books are there.  Seldom are there any books in hardback fiction that I would care to read myself. 

   I’m thinking that the Dr. Seuss and other children’s books are bought by parents and other grownups as gifts for children.  I don’t think grownups read hardback fiction anymore. I know I am reading a fair number of Young Adult books. The YA books have protagonists that actually do something, have a plot that I can follow and have some interesting things happen, and other sequels so that if I liked the first one, I can buy and read some more of the same.

What are the Russians thinking?

    TV coverage of bodies lying in the street, many of them bound, mass graves and blown up buildings are going all over the West, and making us think the Russians are real barbarians.  It is doing them harm, we think that people that uncivilized need some harsh sanctions, like cutting off their oil sales, messing with their credit, seizing $120 million yachts, and other stuff is what they deserve. 

   If the Russians had any sense, they wouldn’t leave dead civilians lying in the streets.  I don’t know where Putin himself is coming from, but the high command of the Russian army ought to have insisted that the troops lay off the civilians.  Somewhere down the chain of command, things were let slip.  Could have been officers at the division level, or at the brigade level, or the company level.  Or it could be that the troops just ignored their officers and started shooting civilians.  How ever it happened it hurt the Russians badly.  They should have known what this sort of behavior would do to them, and they should have prevented it.  They failed, and they are now drawing world wide condemnation.