House of Cards

And so the binge watching of the latest season has begun.
I'm too tired tonight to give it a thoughtful address in words.
I have to get up early for an all day seminar tomorrow, but will share a review when I finish it.

I find myself drawn to this series (and no I haven't watched the Original British show), just like I'm drawn to Sorkin's Newsroom and West Wing. Only House of Cards is more along the lines of Macbeth, while Sorkin's political dramas are more Mark Twain meets Hunter Thompson.

I'm a sucker for layered references, great writing, strong narratives, brilliant and flawed characters, and being drama, unfolding dominoes of catastrophes! The acting is superb in HOC and the banter just a tetch slower than the speed of light Sorkin's dialogue.

The modern day moral dilemmas captured in HOC , combined with headline events and over the top hyperbolic scenes are addictive. Who will turn on whom? How far will each ambitious person go to reach their goals? When is enough enough? Who is really working for the good of the people and with good will?

Newsroom and West Wing represented a less brutal and less greedy view of political animals at work. The characters were tortured by the drive to do the right thing for the reputation of the government and the good of the people.

I like to watch people's motivations and mental prowess on parade. I like to consider, in an instant, what would I do, think, say in certain situations. Situations that most of us will never share with the politicians we elect to office. Situations we many never be privy to during our lifetimes, and as the history will be written by the victors and vindicated, not by those who lost or perished.

Tomorrow Obama and his family are going to Selma for the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday.
This week the ruling was made the Ferguson Police Department has categorically targeted, harassed, ticketed, violated and abused it's black population.
Also this week, Boris Nemstov was the latest Putin critic to be killed (I've lost count. 8th critic?)!
Last year the number fell from one in three American women will be raped in their life to to one in five.
Two steps forward, one step back.

If HOC is Macbeth, then Newsroom and West Wing were To Kill a Mockingbird. 

I must go to sleep now, I'll continue my binging tomorrow night.


Good Night, Rhetoricians and Rabble-Rousers, G'night!