Good evening,
Another day, another development in the saga of Rep. John Thompson. Last night, he broke his relative silence and released a long statement about the incident, and today the St. Paul Police released body camera footage of the incident. [ Read more from David H. Montgomery and Brian Bakst]
Text messages from Mayor Jacob Frey's campaign drew an ethics complaint this week after a staffer solicited volunteers for "the city of Minneapolis." The campaign apologized and said an intern had mistakenly identified herself as representing the city instead of the campaign. Critics say the texts were misleading and unethical. [Read more from the Minnesota Reformer's Ricardo Lopez]
President Joe Biden gave a speech attacking Republican proposals to tighten ballot access laws as "un-American" and "un-democratic." But the president avoided calling for ending or changing the U.S. Senate's filibuster rules, which may be the only way Democrats are able to pass a federal law on the subject given Republican opposition. [Read more from The Associated Press]
The environmental movement is currently divided between proposals to upgrade America's power lines to get energy from big solar and wind farms to where people live, and proposals to focus on small-scale rooftop solar. [Read more from the New York Times' Ivan Penn and Clifford Krauss]
New research into white Minnesotans' attitudes toward racial justice protests predicts 2021 won't see the kind of large-scale street protests we witnessed in 2020. That's not to say there won't be protests — there almost certainly will be! — but barring new developments, researcher Geneva Cole finds the factors that motivated sympathetic people to join determined activists in the streets aren't there right now. [Read more from Geneva Cole in the Washington Post]
Something completely different: Yesterday, an interesting Twitter prompt asked people for their suggestions on how they'd change the Star Wars sequel trilogy, if they could. Those movies ended up being enough of a mess that there are really obvious answers like "have a plan for all three movies going in instead of making it up as you go along," but my take was something more subtle. Instead of the movies we got, which recreated the dynamics of the original trilogy with the First Order building new planet-destroying weapons to cow the galaxy into submission, the trilogy should have taken at least two full movies before the First Order becomes an existential threat to the New Republic. In other words, in Episode VII, they should be a band of glorified terrorists — devastating to their victims, but no real threat to actually rule the galaxy. To capture that "Empire Strikes Back" vibe Disney was shooting for, the second movie can climax with the First Order executing their devious plan and seizing power, leaving Episode X for the heroes to regroup.
The biggest benefit here is a movie that feels less derivative and more realistic — that doesn't start to fall apart the more you think about it. But I think it also creates some interesting narrative possibilities, with a cat-and-mouse game between heroes and villains, and the opportunity to see villains as active characters instead of a passive juggernaut the heroes just need to outwit.
What changes would you make? Post your replies on Twitter.
Listen: My writing music today was Cappella Romana's album of medieval Greek Orthodox chants, a soothing wave of sound engineered to mimic the groundbreaking acoustics of the Haggia Sophia. [Listen] | | |
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