Iran War + WickedAI

I'm against the escalating war in the Middle East for the same reasons as most Americans, except for rising gas prices, which I'd be lying if I said I give much of a crap about. Surprisingly, my very conservative mother said years ago that gas prices weren't high enough to reflect the environmental damage it causes, and she wasn't wrong. Anyway, I'm still glad the Ayatollah and several members of his evil regime are dead. My position on that hasn't changed and won't change. I'm allowed to acknowledge the positives of illegal and destructive wars that I can't stop.

I went to a protest against the war yesterday, but I hung back noncommitally until I was sure the speakers wouldn't defend the evil regime. Of course, they didn't mention how it treats women and queer people or that it recently killed far more of its own citizens than American and Israeli bombs have, but they didn't say anything stupid about its sovereignty or right to exist either, so that's a win. They just said stuff I agree with about how war ruins people's lives and makes weapons manufacturers fabulously wealthy while we can't afford healthcare. There was a verbal altercation between a brown woman in a Ukraine flag and a loud, insufferable-looking white guy, after which the woman left, and I think that had something to do with why the organizer of the protest, a young Iranian-American, got up at the end and asked us to remember the people we're fighting for, and to respect Iranian-Americans who have a different perspective, and that this was for them, not us. She got some tepid applause, and she said she was relieved to not get booed off the stage. But yeah, I happen to know that some Iranians, including those actually in Iran at the present moment, are thrilled about this war. They hate the regime that much. They'd rather take their chances with the bombs than keep living under constant oppression with no end in sight.

Many of us then marched from the Federal Building up to the Capitol to joing a protest for women's rights, and I saw a Mormon sister missionary across the street filming us as we chanted anti-Trump slogans, so I assume she either agreed with us or just wanted to affirm her testimony of the wickedness of the last days. This second protest was almost over when I left because the speaker said something stupid about the former president of Venezuela. First of all, I thought it was a hell of a stretch to bring him up in the first place, as the speaker used the kidnapping of him and the First Lady as an example of Trump's disdain for women. But the part that made me leave was the speaker's false claim that Nicolas Maduro was "democratically elected." If that were true, it wouldn't make him less of a brutal dictator, but it's not true. He was an incumbent president who lost re-election by a significant margin and refused to leave office - you know, just like Trump tried to do, but he got away with it because Venezuela's highest court is even more corrupt than the USA's. I hope the speaker was just laughably ignorant, not lying out of a compulsion to shield socialist governments from criticism, but it pissed me off a little either way.

Someone at this protest gave me a handout for an activist study group hosted by the Freedom Road Socialist Organization to "discuss how we can build the socialisty movement with Marxism-Leninism!" I would be interested in attending with an open mind, except that I'd probably find every single person there insufferable. Mind you, I'll still stand with them against fascists any day of the week. It's just so refreshing to have the integrity and clarity to criticize both sides, even though one side is clearly much, much worse.

A friend sent me this music video the other day. The music and the video were both made with AI in 32 hours, and they're very much the opposite of "slop" (though I readily acknowledge that most of what's called "AI slop" is, in fact, slop). Great tune, great lyrics, great shots. I'm blown away. My childhood dream of turning my daydreams into movies is closer than my more sensible adult self ever imagined. Of course,  it's also legitimately scary how good this video is. Soon it will be impossible to tell the difference between AI and reality, and I have no idea how or if society is going to adapt to that. The legal system already has safeguards in place against fabricated photographic or video evidence, but the average American who already believes everything they see in social media is about to get mind-screwed. There are also potential legal concerns about using actors' likenesses. I don't know much about that, but I know that Giselle from "Enchanted" isn't an official Disney Princess because Disney would have to pay Amy Adams every time they used her likeness, even in illustrated form, so it seems inevitable that sooner or later, someone is going to sue over their likeness appearing in an unauthorized music video. Hopefully not a really badass one like this, though.

Lord of the Rings Disco: One Funk to Rule them All

Most of the songs on this channel are disco, funk, metal, grunge, or emo. I think I got that right. I'm not a genre expert, I just know what I like. This guy uses disco and funk interchangeably, though. Several of the songs are bangers. Some don't do as much for me. ​​My favorite one, despite being far less popular than the one my friend sent me - possibly due to algorithm shenanigans - is this Star Wars metal ballad that blew my socks off and then incinerated them. It's an uber-banger that makes George Lucas's ham-fisted portrayal of Anakin Skywalker's (spoiler alert) turn to the Dark Side as artsy and badass as it always should have been. This guy made the interesting artistic choice to portray the Star Wars characters in dark fantasy getup, and in this context, the AI graphics aren't as realistic as when they're portraying Lord of the Rings characters in da club, but they still look amazing. Did I mention that the song is an uber-banger? Anakin addressing his own wife by her last name is odd, but it sounds so epic and so right.

Metal Star Wars: Lord of the Sith (Anakin Skywalker)

Going back through the videos, I could see how much they've improved in only a year. A Pirates of the Caribbean music video from a year ago, "Dead Men Tell No Tales," is still good but looks and sounds more artificial. Unfortunately, going back through the videos is also how I discovered one about DOGE. I read the transcript instead of listening/watching, and it's Elon Musk bragging about how he'll root out all the corruption and waste in the government and send the perpetrators "Straight to Jail." I would have been happier not knowing that the guy behind these videos is MAGA. I couldn't resist trying to make him feel embarrassed for thinking that the richest man in the world would root out corruption and waste out of the goodness of his heart. I commented, "This aged like milk." Mic drop. Even MAGA, with its famous disdain for basic logic and objective reality, can't argue that point... can it?

This guy simply responded, "ikr." (On the remote chance that anyone for whom English is a second language is reading this, that means, "I know, right?") I actually respect that. So fine, okay, I'll separate the artist from the art. Yes, even though it may be controversial, I am calling him an "artist" because he puts a lot of work into these songs and videos, several of them are very, very good, and I don't know what else to call him. The world is better because these songs and videos are in it. The world is worse because of his politics, but his individual influence in that regard is probably negligible anyway. Just like mine. Heavy sigh.