Is the Term "Socialism" Even Useful Anymore?

Conservatives (and way too many libertarians) refer to anything they don't like as "socialism," whether it even remotely resembles actual socialist doctrine or not.

Avowed socialists refer to anything that sounds like what they advocate, but turns into a totalitarian shit-show as having not been "real" socialism.

And many supposed, or even avowed, socialists in actual power oppose anything that sounds like what they claim to advocate, and actually works well, if it gets in the way of logrolling with allied constituencies. For example, their response to "gig economy" workers who actually own/control the means of production (the fundamental definition of socialism) is "shut up and get your ass back to the capitalist 'employee'/company 'union' plantation."

Potentially Useful

I think it may have been Justin O'Donnell who tweeted something about Cointree, a site that makes it easy for people to send you cryptocurrency -- you put in your wallet addresses and when people visit your profile they can get a QR code, clickable link for opening their native wallet, or just plain address. You can change your addresses at will, but the profile link always remains the same, which is nice.

I've set up a Cointree profile for Rational Review News Digest, since we're running our year-end fundraiser (see the web edition for a pinned post on that). I haven't hit the cryptocurrency angle during the fundraiser yet, but when I do I'll flog the Cointree link.

An aside: Yes, I'm behind on my "at least one post a day" goal for this month, although I remain ahead of it for the year. I've been unusually busy, although I don't know why. I don't feel like I'm really doing any more than usual; I just feel like everything's taking longer than it should. I go through phases like that.

Fairly Short and Hopefully Spoiler-Free Review: Dune

TL;DR:

My disappointment isn't immeasurable, and my day is not ruined. Stunning cinematography, impressive effects, and a great score. But if you're looking for the story, this version of Dune isn't worth a 12-mile round-trip bicycle ride to see on the big screen. I'll be blunt: I caught myself checking the time. Twice.

Longer version:

David Lynch's 1984 version -- the initial theatrical cut, which I saw on opening night, before it was shortened to 90 minutes, as I saw it a month later -- is a superior rendering of the novel. Yes, it's got circa-1984 effects. Yes, it's got David Lynch weirdness built in (that's a feature, not a bug, at least when it comes to the portrayal of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, btw). But it tells the whole story, and does so comprehensibly, and does so reasonably faithfully, in (per Wikipedia) 137 minutes. I re-watched it last month, and while movies from the '80s tend not to age very well, it still works for me.

Denis Villeneuve's version runs 156 minutes, only covers the first half of the story, glosses over significant plot elements, key players (the Spacing Guild is barely mentioned, for example; the two mentats from the novel appear but there's no explanation of what the hell they are; etc.), and character motivations (Yueh gets the brief motivational explanation, nothing moving about it), presumably so that he can resolutely focus on lead character Paul Atreides.

I don't object to spending 156 minutes on the first half of the story.

I do object to boring me nearly to sleep by not making the characters and what happens to them seem worth caring about.

I don't think that any of the actors did a poor job. It felt more like most of them were given some lines and some marks to hit, then shoved into the background once they'd managed to shoehorn some bit of needed explanation into the plot. The real exception to that rule is Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho, who is magnificent.

Sharon Duncan-Brewster also does a fine job as Liet-Kynes ... fine enough that I only grumbled to myself a little bit about the recent film-maker habit of changing up the sex/gender of well-known fictional characters for no apparent reason.

I'm sure I'll watch the movie again. Maybe even on the big screen, since my family wants to see it and my tickets are paid for by the month, not the movie. Perhaps on a second viewing I'll find more to like about it.