President-elect Donald Trump announced on Wednesday morning that he has selected Peter Navarro to serve as his Senior Counselor for Trade and Manufacturing. “During my First Term, few were more effective or tenacious than Peter in enforcing my two sacred rules, Buy American, Hire American,” Trump posted on social media. “He helped me renegotiate unfair Trade Deals like NAFTA and the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS), and moved every one of my Tariff and Trade actions FAST.” Trump said Navarro’s skill set is a perfect match for the position, which will harness his policy knowledge, analytic skills, and media prowess. “Peter is not just a superb, Harvard-trained Economist, he is a noted author of more than a dozen bestselling books on strategic business management and unfair Trade,” Trump added. “He did a superb job for the American People in my First Term. Peter will do even better as Senior Counselor to protect American Workers, and truly Make American Manufacturing Great Again.” CHECK OUT THE DAILY WIRE HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE Trump said that the 75-year-old had been “treated horribly by the Deep State” over the last few years, a reference to Navarro being incarcerated for four months because he refused to cooperate with the Democrat-led House Select Committee investigating the January 6 riot. After Navarro was released five months ago, he gave a fiery speech at the Republican National Convention after receiving nearly a minute-long standing ovation. “The January 6 committee demanded that I betray Donald John Trump to save my own skin,” Navarro said. “I refused.”

A new trailer for Disney’s live-action “Snow White” just dropped, and it’s getting a lot of negative attention from fans. One of the biggest criticisms has to do with the computer-generated imagery (CGI) portrayal of the seven dwarfs. Even overseas outlets are ripping on the trailer, with a writer from The Guardian calling it “hauntingly bad” and “the ugliest thing ever committed to screen.” Most of those complaints revolve around the appearance of the CGI characters. “It treats the animals that Snow White finds in the woods with the same photorealistic CGI that was used in the most recent Lion King remake, which has the effect of transforming helpful woodland creatures into literal vermin. And then there are the dwarves. My God, the dwarves,” the writer continues. “The new Snow White dwarves look like someone has snuck into Disneyland, grabbed the statues from Snow White’s Enchanted Wish and wrapped them in human flesh, as a serial killer would with a gift for their mother. They look like something a seaside caricaturist would draw of someone they openly hated. They look like animatronic figures that were struck by lightning and came to life before the fire was put out. They look like someone has shaved the Sonic the Hedgehog from that first Sonic the Hedgehog trailer that everyone hated,” The Guardian writer says, adding that they serve as “nightmare fuel.” Reactions on social media are not much better.  “Are you honestly telling me that disney executives saw footage from the live action snow white movie and thought ‘yeah those dwarves look great, no notes’…Yikes,” one person shared on X.  CHECK OUT THE DAILY WIRE HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE “They look so fake to me,” another wrote. “This is the CGI dwarves that Disney will have in the new adaptation of Snow White? This movie is going to bomb so hard that it will make the Hindenburg look like a small camp fire,” another agreed. Rumor has it that live actors were originally cast as the dwarfs, but that plan was scrapped during filming when photos of the diverse group were leaked and mocked on social media. Actor Peter Dinklage, who has dwarfism, also denounced the film in the early stages. “Literally no offense to anything, but I was sort of taken aback,” he said during a podcast interview in 2022. “They were very proud to cast a Latin[a] actress as Snow White, but you’re still telling the story of ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.’ Take a step back and look at what you’re doing there. It makes no sense to me. You’re progressive in one way, but you’re still making that f***ing backward story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together. Have I done nothing to advance the cause from my soapbox? I guess I’m not loud enough.” Since its beginning, “Snow White” has been plagued by controversy, thanks in part to lead actress Rachel Zegler’s negative remarks about the fairytale and other inflammatory statements. Her comments have inspired many fans to boycott the film.  

"He also recognizes that digital assets & other innovations are crucial to Making America Greater than Ever Before," Trump added.

I don't usually agree with Martina, but when I do

Canada will be limiting its number of immigrants over the next two years, not putting a freeze on the acceptance of immigrants. 

'Inconsistent with your own characteristics'

'Fight these abuses'

There is no evidence of Wilson having a brother-in-law by this name. 

Movies & TV Star Wars: Skeleton Crew Star Wars: Skeleton Crew Premiere Is High on Charm The series is high on nostaglia for a certain kind of kids’ adventure, but its central mystery is what really powers the tale By Emmet Asher-Perrin | Published on December 4, 2024 Credit: Lucasfilm Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Lucasfilm We’ve got a two-episode premiere! Let’s get to it. “This Could Be A Real Adventure” Credit: Lucasfilm In the time of the New Republic, piracy is on the rise on hyperspace routes. A pirate ship crew boards a bulk freighter, looking for a large haul. Captain Silvo, who has not been popular with his crew of late as they’ve fallen on lean times, is sure that this will fix morale, but his first mate, Brutus (Fred Tatasciore), enters the vault and finds a single credit. The crew turns on Silvo. On the planet At Attin, Wim (Ravi Cabot-Conyers) is told that his father Wendle (Tunde Adebimpe) is going to be working late most nights this week, and Wendle gives his son lunch money for the entire duration. Wim meets best friend Neel (Robert Timothy Smith) on their way to the tram for school, and they have a fake lightsaber fight. At school, their lesson is stopped by Undersecretary Fara (Kerry Condon), who reminds the students that tomorrow is their Career Assessment Tests, which will determine their future place in the “Great Work” At Attin does for the Republic. She asks the children what they would like to do, and they all give very rote, safe responses—analysts and such—but Wim wants to help people in danger. His droid teacher insists that’s what safety droids are for. After class, Neel worries that Wim is going to fail his test and calls him out for basically admitting that he wants to be a Jedi when he grows up. Nearby, Fern (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) and her best friend KB (Kyriana Kratter) are racing their speeder bike and blow out the power coupling. Ferm worries because the scrapyard is picked over, and she wants to race against bully Bonjj Phalfa (Shané Almagor). Fern turns out to be the daughter of Fara, who is pleased that her daughter has gotten back to her spot at “head of the class” because there’s only so much room for people “at the top.” Wim asks his father to read him a story that night like his mom used to, but Wendle has to work and thinks his kid is too old for stories anyway. The next morning, Wim oversleeps and misses the tram, having to grab his speeder bike and take a “shortcut” to school. He drives through the woods, loses his helmet and falls down a ravine, coming across a big metal door buried in the dirt. He’s found by a security robot, who brings him to school; he’s missed his test, and his father is called in from work. Fern meets Wim there and tries to convince him that kids who skip the test are forced to work in “the mines” under the school. Wendle tells Wim that he convinced the proctor to let his son retake the test, but he’ll have to get every answer right to pass with a fifty-point penalty now levied against him. Wim tries to tell his dad that he found a Jedi Temple, but his father won’t hear it. Later, Wim convinces Neel to go back to the woods and unearth the temple. But Fern has arrived with KB and wants to call “claimses” on the site. She wins that little battle, but agrees to let the boys dig the place up for them; she wants to strip it for parts, hoping to get a power converter for her bike. Wim agrees, but only if she lets them go inside. Many hours later, Wendle gets home to find Wim gone. He goes into the woods to search for him, and finds the boy’s helmet. At the site, KB helps them open the door using her cybernetic add-ons, and they rush inside to avoid Wim’s dad who is calling for them nearby. They find a deactivated robot and the door locks behind them. In order to get out, they need to get the power back on, so the kids start searching. Fern tells the boys not to touch anything, and Wim that he needs to grow up and stop insisting that this place in a Jedi Temple. Wim investigates on his own and finds a cockpit… but it’s upside-down. KB manages to get the ship back online and the systems begin powering up, including a flashing green button that Wim presses. The ship begins to fire engines, emerging from the earth, and turning over as the kids rush to escape. Wendle sees the children on the hull, but cannot reach them, and the ship begins to leave the planet. The kids make it back inside as the ship gets through the Barrier of At Attin and goes into hyperspace on autopilot. “Way, Way Out Past the Barrier” Image: Lucasfilm The ship exits hyperspace and the kids worry over how they’ll possibly get back home from here. They meet SM-33 (Nick Frost), the first mate droid who means to turn them over to the captain of his ship. Fern tells him that she defeated his captain and she is the new captain. SM-33 believes her and shows them how to fly the starship, which is a bit complex for everyone except KB. Wim almost touches the emergency hull demolition sequencer. Fern asks the droid to take them home, but he doesn’t know where their planet is and doesn’t seem to have ever heard of it. Fern asks him to take them to the starport he mentioned so they can get directions. Back on At Attin, Wendle find two droids investigating the seismic disturbance made by the ship and demands that they help him find his son. Wim shows Neel all the rooms and weird items he’s found investigating the ship, including the captain’s quarters. The ship arrives at Port Borgo, located on an asteroid. SM-33 sends the kids over with a Teek ferryman, and tells them to trust no one. The ferryman wants payment so Wim gives him some of his lunch money, which causes quite the kerfuffle when seen. Wim hides the rest of his money in his sock. The kids start searching for somewhere they think they think might give them directions, but the place is full of pirates doing drugs and getting tattoos. A woman from the strip club(?) tells the girls it’s not safe there for children and asks where they’re from. When they tell her, she asks them to be serious; At Attin is known as the lost planet of eternal treasure around these parts. Wim and Neel almost cause a scene again getting food… because it turns out that Wim is paying with mint condition Old Republic credits. The kids are asked again where they’re from, and when they say At Attin, the pirates around them laugh. Wim and Neel try to escape and the group is surrounded by pirates—SM-33 comes to their rescue and begins beating up the collected scoundrels. They run, and Fern informs SM-33 that he shouldn’t have brought them to this port because they’re not pirates; the droid is understandably confused. Brutus arrives and asks what these children are doing in his spaceport. He sends them to the brig. The kids argue in lockup about what to do next, but a figure in the cells (Jude Law) tells them not to fight. He offers to help them get to the ship and back home, as long as they bring him with them. They ask him how he’ll help, and he uses the Force to bring the key to him. He asks the kids if they can keep a secret. Commentary Image: Lucasfilm Okay, I have to admit, the idea that these kids might live on a weird hidden world cut off from the known galaxy is pretty great. It also helps to alleviate all the weirdness from the first episode, where childhood worries become incredibly outsized due to bureaucratic systems that don’t make… any sense. Like, sure, Wim missed the bus to school and is late for his very important test, but the idea that he’d be in this much trouble to the point where he now has to get every answer right just to pass? That’s just plain silly. Major tests have makeup dates because you can’t expect everyone to be perfect and make every appointment in their lives… if you live in a real, normal place, that functions in a sensible way. A story needs to have stakes, but these are weird ones. Until we note that Undersecretary Fara believes in the “Great Work” they’re doing for… the Republic. Not the New Republic, mind you. It’s safe to assume she means the OG version. And there’s plenty more weirdness everywhere you look: Whatever that Great Work is supposed to be. The fact that droids administrate nearly everything on this planet, and keep things orderly to a degree that borders on brainwashing. The scrapyard being “picked over,” with no alternatives in sight. All the kids wanting incredibly boring jobs that they’ll hold for the rest of their lives. The Barrier that no one is meant to enter or exit. Presumably the Barrier makes the planet invisible to the rest of the galaxy, but who put it in place? And when did they decide to do this—at the start of the Clone Wars? Before? Do the adults know, or are they in the dark as well? This is some good dystopia they’ve cooked up in the background of this cute kids’ adventure. The idea of keeping this entire planet bogged down in bureaucratic nonsense to the point that no one has tried to leave in (at the very least) decades? A planet full of folks who don’t even know the Empire happened? Wim reading about an order of Jedi who are effectively long-dead? Yikes. Tell me everything. And this makes the ‘80s youth adventure/Spielbergian vibe that much easier to incorporate. You buy that a planet like this has the kind of suburbs that breed these stories, but it’s exciting for the fact that we’ve never seen a place like this in Star Wars. Places with sidewalks and school trams and neighbors who walk frogdogs in the morning. It makes something dated and nostalgic feel a little bit new. I’m loving all the kids so far, and really hoping that SM-33 isn’t permanently deactivated because how can you possibly create a pirate robot with Long John Silver vibes and then immediately scrap him. I’m trusting the show to make the right choice here. Jude Law’s character is billed as Jod Na Nawood… but he’s also clearly Captain Silvo from the start of the episode. The main question I have with regard to the character is whether or not those Force powers are the real deal. Because his exhibiting of them seemed awful convenient at the point where he showed up. Doesn’t mean it’s fake for sure, but it wouldn’t be the first time someone had tried that gambit. If he is, Law’s character is the right age to have survived the Purge as either a student or a much younger Jedi, so he’d be understandably messed up from that. So we’ve got a good mystery cooking, a set of fun (and adorable) characters, and an adventure to see through. Not a bad start. Spanners and Sabers Image: Lucasfilm The opening bit where Silvo asks the freighter captain “If this is a bulk freighter, why is your vault magnetically sealed?” is undoubtedly meant to mirror Vader’s “If this is a consular ship, where is the ambassador?” The pirate Gunter (the one with the very Lobot headgear setup), is none other than Jaleel White, known by nerds-of-a-certain-age everywhere for his role of Steve Urkel in the sitcom Family Matters. Brutus’ species is a Shistavanen, which wasn’t named until more recent comic runs. Their first appearance was in the original release of the very first Star Wars film, but it was cut out of the ’97 Special Edition and all iterations thereafter—so it’s pretty cool to see one on screen again. The ferryman at Port Borgo is a Teek, which is a species first introduced in Ewoks: The Battle for Endor, a speedy guy who helped Cindel when she was in a tight spot. I might be inordinately excited about seeing one again. We now have, uh, gray? Gray milk? For cereal. I wanna know what sort of vitamin complexes you get from different colors and what animals they all come from. The circus holovid that Neel’s siblings are watching is full confirmation that all the weird entertainment shit we saw in the Star Wars Holiday Special is, in fact, canon. I mean it isn’t really confirmation, but that’s what I’m taking it as. Importantly, Neel’s species is not Ortolan (like Max Rebo), as many a fan expected. Which… honestly makes more sense from an evolutionary standpoint? Several blue elephant species instead of one, just like the many different nearly-human species running about. SM-33 names Atollon, Al Alcor, and Aldhani as other possible worlds the kids could be from. Atollon is where the fledgling Rebel Alliance stationed Chopper Base, and Aldhani is the world where Cassian Andor and a small rebel cell performed arguably the most important heist in Rebellion history. Next week! We get to know Jude Law, erstwhile pirate captain?[end-mark] The post <i>Star Wars: Skeleton Crew</i> Premiere Is High on Charm appeared first on Reactor.

Books Reading the Weird The Sleep of Reason: Stephen King’s Pet Sematary (Part 14) By Ruthanna Emrys, Anne M. Pillsworth | Published on December 4, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share Welcome back to Reading the Weird, in which we get girl cooties all over weird fiction, cosmic horror, and Lovecraftiana—from its historical roots through its most recent branches. This week, we continue Stephen King’s Pet Sematary with Chapters 40-42. The novel was first published in 1983. Spoilers ahead! Content warning for child death. Recent chapters must have been an evil dream, or a “hellishly detailed moment of imagination” as Louis raced death for his son’s life. In the instantaneous vision of disaster, Louis just missed grabbing Gage’s jacket. In reality, he just snagged it, pulling Gage out of danger. There was no crushing grief, no wake, no appalling public fist fight with Rachel’s father. Instead: Early on, Gage showed a great aptitude for swimming. In high school, he converted to Catholicism, causing Rachel to predict he’d marry his Catholic girlfriend to the destruction of all his academic and athletic hopes. But he went on to Johns Hopkins and a gold medal at the Olympics. Louis and Rachel watched his triumph on TV. “I guess this caps everything,” Louis said, but then he saw Rachel’s elation change to horror. Looking back at the screen, he saw not Gage on the podium but another boy. The cap to everything, in reality, was baby Gage’s cap, on the road, full of blood. Louis wakes to a gray morning, a raging hangover, and the evil reality of his son’s burial day. At last he breaks down sobbing, thinking that he’d do anything for a second chance. Anything at all. * * * The prevailing gray and black of the grave-side ceremony are punctuated for Louis by Gage’s white coffin, floral tributes, the violent green of Astroturf and the yellow payloader hiding behind a hill until the actual burying can begin. Jud comforts Ellie as Louis has been unable to. His gaze reproves Louis, but Louis can do nothing when his thoughts are full of Gage. * * * The final funeral ceremony, “the rite of food,” takes place at the Creeds’ house. The party is quiet, but drinks are raised, with Louis downing several beers himself. He watches Rachel’s parents comfort her and avoid him. He makes the right replies to condolences; if he seems distant, people will excuse it. No one can know he’s thinking about graverobbing. Just as a game. It’s not like he’d ever do anything. After the party, Louis drives back to Pleasantview Cemetery. He follows winding paths to Gage’s grave, ignoring the internal Jud-voice that warns “you’re looking up a road you don’t want to travel.” Pleasantview isn’t like the Pet Sematary. Its acreage is “sanely divided into quadrants,” whereas the Sematary is all rough concentric circles, recalling that ancient symbol of the spiral, twisty bridge to the unknown. He realizes now that the Sematary is a come-on for the true burial ground beyond. Standing over Gage’s neatly raked earth, Louis continues thinking about resurrection logistics. The cemetery gates will be locked at night. There may be a watchman. What if he’s caught? He imagines criminal charges, losing his job, Rachel horrified, Ellie harried by classmates. But—Gage could live again! According to Jud, Timmy Baterman came back a daemon. Though determined to think rationally, not wishfully, Louis can’t believe that would happen with Gage. He could be muddled, diminished, but Louis would still love him. Still, horror sweeps him when he realizes he’s drawn a spiral on Gage’s grave. He rubs it out and leaves, furtive as a trespasser. Back home, Louis realizes the time between death and reburial may be critical. To expedite Gage’s resurrection, he’ll need to send Rachel and Ellie away. He persuades Rachel to go back to Chicago the next day with her parents. She resists. The family needs to stay together, and she senses Louis hiding something. He denies it, and promises to follow her and Ellie after arranging things in Ludlow. The Goldmans are thrilled to host Rachel and Ellie. Almost like magic, it’s easy to get last-minute flights. We also hear that the truck driver who hit Gage wasn’t drunk or high, just had a weird urge that day to speed through Ludlow. He’s since tried to hang himself. But surely even if the burial ground nudged the driver, it can’t control airline prices. Irwin Goldman calls to apologize for what happened at the funeral home. The old man breaks down crying. Louis tries to retain his resentment, but suddenly thinks about really burying the hatchet with the Goldmans and abandoning his resurrection plans. Letting Gage go seems the sane path to reweaving their lives. Or—would it be killing Gage a second time? Even while packing, Rachel has doubts. Is Louis hiding something? And—Ellie’s had a nightmare about seeing her father at the kitchen table, eyes open but dead. An understandable nightmare, and yet Rachel senses “a quality of prophecy.” Later, in bed, Louis reminds Rachel of the time they were afraid that infant Gage might be hydrocephalic. It turned out he wasn’t, but what if he had been? Would she still have loved him? Of course, she would have: Gage would have still been Gage, mentally disabled or otherwise. The Degenerate Dutch: Alternate-Gage’s conversion to Catholicism is accompanied by random slut-shaming of his girlfriend. Libronomicon: Oz “the Gweat and Tewwible” continues to symbolize the horror of death, power or lack of power barely obfuscated behind the curtain. Louis also considers the methods of “Dickensian Resurrection Men”—most likely Jerry Cruncher in A Tale of Two Cities, a character who has entirely fallen out of my memory since high school—and quotes Andrew Marvellon the nature of graves. Madness Takes Its Toll: If Gage really had been killed, Louis believes it would’ve driven Rachel crazy. Not that it would be easy to tell, with how people keep giving her Valium. Ruthanna’s Commentary Goddammit, Louis. And Goddammit, Stephen. I knew, starting Chapter 40, that “none of that happened” couldn’t be true—would end up a dream or a fantasy. But like Louis, I wanted to believe. And King sends books in all sorts of weird directions, so maybe…? Maybe Gage dies later, or someone else dies instead, or the wendigo gets at the family some other way, because after all something has to happen in all those remaining pages. But not this? Please? And so of course I go into the following chapters all too sympathetic with Louis’s wishful thinking, and all too aware that I am not immune. My least favorite finding in cognitive psychology is that studying cognitive bias doesn’t make one any less prone to it. In fact, those of us who specialize in the failure modes of human reason have extra tools for convincing ourselves of the things we want to believe—bolstered by the conviction that we know how to protect ourselves against loss aversion, confirmation bias, the sunk cost fallacy, etc., etc. It’s possible to mitigate those things with enough training and attention, sometimes, but all too often the quest for rationality is self-defeating.   Even moreso than psychologists, doctors are trained to think through high-stakes problems calmly, rationally, with an eye to the evidence. There’s a reason they’re also not supposed to handle those problems for their loved ones. Louis brings all his professional mind-tools to bear on the task of “deciding” whether to resurrect Gage. And those tools get him exactly where he wants to go—and nowhere that’s a good idea. But really, once you have the evidence that resurrection is possible, its advisability is a purely empirical question, right? Even the safest treatment has some percentage chance of negative outcomes. Thus a negative outcome is not evidence that a treatment is dangerous. Never mind if the best observed outcome is something minorly-malevolent but shaped like a cat, that you find revolting to touch and disturbing to have near your kids. You could get the same effect, sort of, from a head injury. If you think about it, the potential side effects of the burial ground aren’t that different from an intellectual disability. The word Louis uses is now considered a slur, but on the other hand “of course you’d still love your kid and keep them at home” was not an attitude to be taken for granted in the early 80s. And on the more important hand, intellectual disability is surprisingly distinguishable from wendigo-puppeted undeath—assuming you don’t have massive motivation to decide that it isn’t. Like any good medical professional, Louis also considers moderating factors. Time since death ought to logically make a difference, especially since the worst known outcome came after a delay due to overseas shipping. Ideally we would run tests on mice, but there’s no time for that. Better to do—that thing you’re not doing—quickly, while the odds of minimizing sequelae are high. And if you’re considering doing that thing you aren’t doing, better to get other people out of the way. It’s not like you could explain beforehand, or like they would be able to give equally rational input into the decision. A fait accompli, that’s what you want. Even if you haven’t figured out how the post-hoc explanation would be easier. Even if your wife, not actually a complete idiot, can tell that you’re lying. It’s not like she’s going to guess the truth. Nor does Louis worry about the details of Jud’s warnings. It’s ridiculous (rationally) to believe that something might reach out from the burial ground and urge a truck driver to unsafe speeds, let alone that it might provide convenient airline tickets. So there’s no reason whatsoever to fear that this whole line of thought has been touched off by an outside force. No need to worry that active malevolence is all that makes your “treatment” possible. Louis has planned everything out very logically. He’s accounted for all the possibilities. He’s even considered, and tried to counter, his own wishful thinking about the conclusions that he wants to draw—and after that, still drawn them. With all that caution, what could possibly go wrong? Anne’s Commentary The first time I read Pet Sematary, I bought the opening of Chapter 40, that “none of those things,” those too-hideous things spawned by Gage’s death, had happened. Nor did I snort with shocked outrage, thinking that King had committed the capital narrative-crime of erasing harrowing story events with an “It was all a dream,” or in this case, an unbelievably condensed moment of imagining what would happen if Gage made it to the road. In fact, the dream is the story of how Gage lived to mount that podium of ultimate achievement for an Olympic gold medal. From that height, he might have gazed into a future of triumphs. Or rather, the dreaming Louis might have gazed farther into Gage’s triumphant future, if only he hadn’t woken up as “The Star-Spangled Banner” crescendoed and the cap on Gage’s swimming career changed into a little boy’s cap filled with blood. The blood-filled cap killed me. I had bought Gage’s alternate future, Louis’s dream, not because it was credible after the preceding chapters, but because I had wanted so damn hard to buy it. What might have been exponentially upped the horror of what really was. Inserting the dream here is one of King’s finest moments. On top of the emotional gut-punch, it illustrates the universal human vulnerability that’s going to bring Louis down. Earlier we’ve seen how he prides himself as being unflinchingly rational, as befits a scientist and physician. Other people may try to deny the Big Inevitability which is death. It’s understandable for a child, like Ellie, to do this. Rachel’s death-denialism, however, nears pathological levels. Okay, she finally tells him about Zelda, making her phobia more understandable and allowing him to cut her some slack. Still. Dead is dead. Louis won’t deny the Big Inevitability because he doesn’t want it to be true. Louis doesn’t yield to wishful thinking. Louis knows what he knows. Until he doesn’t know it anymore. Because Micmac burial ground. Because Church resurrected. Because, back a bit, the ghost of Victor Pascow. Here are things never dreamt of in the philosophy that schooled him, or if dreamt of, sturdily rejected. By Chapters 40-42, Louis has incorporated these new realities into his philosophy. Therefore, when he considers taking Gage to the burial ground, he isn’t being irrational. He is considering a possibility, albeit one he doesn’t understand the way he does the biomechanics of blood circulation. And so? He probably couldn’t claim to understand quantum physics, either. Bottom line: As far as practicality’s concerned, it’s no intellectual sin for Louis to think about bringing his son back to life. The intellectual sin he must guard against would be letting emotion cloud his judgment. It would be believing what he wants to believe to the point of ignoring possible contraindications, the shoulds of the matter. What about Hanratty’s resurrected bull, who turned mean? What about Timmy Baterman, who turned more than mean, maybe demonic, monstrous? To put those extremes aside, what about Church? Undeniably, the cat has changed for the worse, but he’s only proven dangerous to small creatures, and that’s just an exaggeration of his essential felinity. Ellie still loves him, in a way, kind of. If Gage came back diminished, dulled, Louis and Rachel would still love him, just as they would have if he’d been born with those handicaps. Louis has ascertained that capacity within himself. Rather tortuously, he’s gotten Rachel to admit to the same capacity. And that’s the important thing, right? It’s what parents do, even if, um, their child “had grown up to commit rape and murder and the torture of the innocent.” That was going to the extremes again. At most, Gage might never learn to read. Right? Right. No wishful thinking here. No glossing over the problem of how family, friends, neighbors, the public at large, would react to a dead boy back “riding his trike in the yard.” To hesitate because of such difficulties would be listening “to the voice of cowardice.” Would be “killing [Gage] a second time.” So Louis decides the right thing to do will be to manipulate Rachel into taking herself and Ellie off to Chicago. It will be to ignore Jud’s warnings. It will be to dismiss another of Ellie’s prophetic-seeming dreams even though her last one, about Church’s death, came true. Even thought Louis can’t quite push this new “prophecy” out of his mind. But come on. A man can only welcome a few strange things into his philosophy at once. He can be allowed to set some aside. Not the ones that might interfere with his plans—that would be the sin of believing what one wants to believe. No, just the strange things that are irrelevant at the moment. The ones that are too strange. Like Jud’s idea that the Micmac burial ground exerts uncanny power, and that its power is growing now and influencing—the actions of truck drivers? The urge of a toddler to run from Daddy at just the wrong time? The availability of last-minute airline reservations, for chrissakes? All right. I’ll allow that Louis is correct to scoff at the notion of uncanny powers controlling airline reservations. Not even the Wendigo could pull that one off. Next week, we celebrate our 500th post with Frank Darabont’s 2007 adaptation of King’s The Mist. Join us, and keep a careful eye on the weather![end-mark] The post The Sleep of Reason: Stephen King’s <i>Pet Sematary</i> (Part 14) appeared first on Reactor.