Milburn Stone

The Preternaturally Gifted Detective. An old trope, but there's a new entry. Whether the detective is more gifted than "normals" because of OCD, autism, or a freakishly high IQ, somehow the condition is central to their ability to solve crimes that normals can't solve. The new entry is Ludwig. It actually combines two previous shows, coming off as a cross between Astrid & Raphaëlle (autism) and High Potential (freakishly high IQ). This time the detective (played charmingly by David Mitchell) is a professional crossword/cryptogram deviser, whose ability to devise crosswords and cryptograms somehow enables him to also solve crimes! But the show is executed nicely, and also has the wonderful Anna Maxwell Martin. We'll keep watching.

Started this show last night. Pretty good! If one were snarky, one could say it's High Potential meets Astrid, and that would be true, but it's carried off charmingly.

No complaints.

It is like that-- it is that!--but I think people can be driven to really dig in, and even become assholes, when a cancellation has been attempted upon them. The fact that the cancellation didn't work doesn't mean she's not incredibly angry that one was attempted. I hope it doesn't appear that I approve of her calculated-to-offend assertions about trans people, asexual people, or anyone else. I'm just saying that trying to cancel people who haven't committed crimes or civil offenses, even to the point of trying to cancel others who've had anything to do with them, is bound sometimes to bring out some less than best-self responses.

Thanks, @supposebly and @Ohiopirate02, for those articles. If I write that my conviction is that Jesus was a mortal man, does that in any way disrespect, or constrain the freedoms of, the believing Christians who conceive him as the resurrected Son of God? I can't see that it does. Both articles cite multiple quotations from Rowlings that she is passionately for the protection of equal rights for trans people. There is no contradiction between that and her belief that biology is determinative of gender. Any more than there is between my belief that Jesus was mortal and my passionate belief that Christians should be allowed to worship him as they please.

Can someone produce a quote from J. K. Rowling in which she says trans people should be denied equal rights and the respect we accord all human beings? I want to be educated on this.

I have to take issue with this. Unless you mean people in academe. I believe that might be true.

I feel seen.

The question wasn’t rhetorical, so thank you for answering it, @SoMuchTV. Coincidentally (or not), last night on the show normally hosted by Lawrence O’Donnell, a talking head also used the term Stochastic Terrorism. I’ve gone my entire life without hearing the word “stochastic” said aloud. Then in one day I hear it said aloud twice. The obvious explanation is it never needed to be said aloud before.

“Needing the work” can mean many things, including things that have nothing to do with money. Some people with plenty of money need to work because they only feel fully alive when they work. Some people need to work because it’s who they are. Some people need to work to keep their brains limber. The list could go on. Personally, I don’t sit in judgment about why John Lithgow takes jobs. Or whether he should.

I love everything about that letter. The wit, the verve. The signoff (“Go!"). For some reason, even the font, size, and position of the letterhead! And her signature.

I don't think so. The context was why the professor is moving to Canada, the reason being the multiple things Trump is doing to bring us closer (in the professor's view) to fascism. I suppose he could conceive presidential actions as a form of terrorism, but that would be a change in the accepted definition, I think. Although his focus was Columbia yielding to Trump, which obviously was due to fear, so maybe he did mean Stochastic Terrorism. What is Stochastic Terrorism, anyway? (Whatever it is, I stand by my point that the professor was stupid to use a term that even highly educated people don't know.)

You could be right, but I had to look it up to know that stochastic more or less meant random.

Not a grammar issue exactly, but...I just heard a Yale professor being interviewed on MSNBC about why he's leaving the country. In his very first sentence he used the word "stochastic" when "random" would have served perfectly well. Thereby branding himself for every viewer--even those who know the word--as an egghead without the common sense God gave a goose. Because it destroyed the point he was trying to make, which is that we should all, not just head-in-the-clouds intellectual snobs with their fancy words, be afraid. Why do people do these things?

This season is reminding me of S1 in many ways. We usually hate the super-rich for not giving up their privilege, but the show points us to the fact that they are human beings, and as such, are governed by human nature—the same human nature that we have. (If it’s nature, by definition we share it.) However much or little privilege we have, even if it's just that we have a roof over our heads, we cannot tolerate the idea of losing it. We push such ideas out of our heads instantly, because they are so terrifying. (We might like others who have less privilege than we do to have more privilege than they do, but not at the cost of us losing ours.) Mike White understands that, which is why he’s able to portray the super-rich with compassion at the same time as humor.