MLK Day

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968

Martin Luther King was a better human being than I will ever be. Today seems like a good day both to admit and accept that, and to say that making the effort, trying to be a person like him--even if I'll never succeed--is worthy.

It is worth doing. And it is worth failing at, because that's how any truly necessary human endeavor goes.

You try. You fail. You try again. You fail better.

And you keep dancing.

the whole ugly mess

I have done my part to make the current cultural appropriation debate a clusterfuck, and for that I am very sorry. For what it's worth, I recognize that I failed, and why, and next time I am determined to fail better.

Bear has made an excellent post, and I'm going to shut up and point you to it.

WHAT SHE SAID.

Waterlog

TIME: 50 min.
DISTANCE: 6 mi.
TOTAL DISTANCE: 150.4 mi.
DISTRACTION: "The Double Affair"
NOTES: Illya menaced by toy robots! FTW!
SHIRE RECKONING: Still in the Chetwood. If Pippin sings one more round of "Eleventy-one bottles of beer on the wall," I'm going to stuff him in a sack.

---

The kindest thing one can say about the plot is that at least the TSTL is evenly divided between UNCLE and THRUSH. And the '60s As You Know Bob Handwavium has a kind of kitschy retro charm. (Apparently the gamma rays understand that it's not fair to aim for the head. Or the hands. You wear your goggles (Because if you look at them, they hypnotize you, like a cobra. Or a dragon.) and your cute white coverall, and you're fine!)

On the other hand, I really do admire Robert Vaughn's acting. You never have any difficulty telling the real Napoleon from the fake; it's partly body language and Napoleon's INCREDIBLY LIMP WRISTS (which he also totally uses to make the guards underestimate him), and it's partly that the fake Napoleon never smiles. He shares not one particle of Napoleon's joie de vivre. And I especially love the very subtle bit at the end, where the real Napoleon is trying to fake out his airline stewardess by pretending, just for a moment, to be the fake Napoleon, and he can't maintain it because he can't keep his dimples down.

[ETA: Also, the fake Napoleon doesn't kiss back.]

And, in our continuing series, BDSM Subtext in MfU Rapidly Becoming Text: only Napoleon Solo would EVER be chained face down on a cot by his captors so that a strapping Valkyrie could GIVE HIM A MASSAGE.