Marvel Bleeding Cash--This Saves Them?, Canada Suicides a Guy For a Bedsore, Kanye West's Disturbing Porn Venture, The Middle Class Can't Afford to Protest (The Five for 04/26/24)
Plus--the summer of director M. Night Shyamalan with back-to-back Hitchcock thrillers? Philadelphia side project drops epic acoustic/punk project.
Hey, welcome to The Five.
One quick note before we begin. I’ll be launching a podcast called The Idea with Seth Tower Hurd coming up this Wednesday, May 1st. It’s an interview format show, focused on the same content you find here.
Stay tuned on Tuesday for how to subscribe.
Now, let’s get into Culture & Commentary.
[one]
Well, this is a heavy one to start with. An artist I knew professionally for more than a decade, American Idol alum and Grammy winner Mandisa was found dead this week. Based on how it’s not being discussed, I can only assume that the cause of death was suicide.
From The Tennessean:
Franklin Police Department officials said Monday that no foul play is suspected in the death of Christian singer Mandisa — four days after she was found dead in her home.
The singer died suddenly in her Franklin home and was found on Thursday. Hundley was identified by a medical examiner, police officials said.
"At this time, there is no indication the death was the result of suspicious or criminal activity," said police spokesperson Max Winitz. "The Franklin Police Department send its condolences to Hundley’s family, friends, and fans."
He did not provide a suspected cause of her death on Monday.
A friend of mine emailed me, asking why we don’t hear as many anti-suicide messages post COVID, an era where “deaths of despair” during lockdowns (suicides, and alcohol/drug overdoses) killed more young people than the disease did (source: NIH.gov).
There are certainly climate activists who think the world is overpopulated, and seek to change ecological trends by depopulation…and not just with increased access to birth control.
Also, as governments take over more health and end-of-life care…tightening budgets require cost cutting…which means getting people to hurry up and die. Like in Canada, where they’ll suicide you for a bed sore.
The (Government owned, mind you) Canadian Broadcasting Company reports:
Without access to a mattress that shifts pressure points to prevent the formation of bedsores, a patient's position must be changed frequently, says Jean-Pierre Beauchemin, a retired geriatrician and professor at Université Laval's faculty of medicine.
"When you're lying down, always in the same position, there's hyper-pressure between the bone and the skin," said Beauchemin.
"A pressure sore can open in less than 24 hours, and then take a very long time to close."
The buttocks, heels, elbows and knees are particularly vulnerable.
A rotation schedule every two hours is generally necessary for a person confined to bed, according to a Quebec Health Ministry reference sheet.
Meunier had previously suffered other bedsores, notably on his heel, but nothing as disabling as the pressure sore he developed after his hospitalisation in Saint-Jérôme.
"I don't want to be a burden. At any rate, the medical opinions say I won't be a burden for long; as the old folks say, it's better to kick the can," said Meunier.
He died at home on March 29.
OBSERVATIONS:
A). The (government owned) media company said the patient was in danger of becoming “even more disabled.” Ummm…he’s a quadriplegic, HOW MUCH MOER DISABLED COULD HE GET?
B). This man had a curable disease (bed sore) inflicted by the (government owned) hospital. To get him off the government’s payroll, the same government run hospital that injured him inflicted him to die.
Given that
C). The U.S. is a bit behind Canada on this trend, with only 10 of 50 states allowing doctors to violate their Hippocratic oath and kill their patients. I don’t want to completely oversimplify this issue completely, as there is one disease (Locked In Syndrome) that push me to consider if there is one disease I would consider assisted suicide for…or, at least, medical non-intervention. If you can’t move anything but your eyes, and require a feeding tube…you’re dying in hours, without the help of a LOT of technology.
D). One of the consistent lines of the pro-abortion crowd is that those who hold the pro-life is that people who hold my view are only “pro birth” not pro care of mothers and children.
First off, I’m trying to do quite a bit of work in my own community around that issue, and there is (a bit of) merit to that argument.
And secondly, until the pro-choice crowd takes stand against doctors talking non-terminal patients into suicide, they can shut the hell up.
E. If you think this is a one-off case, here’s more:
“Canadians Without Life Threatening Diseases Are Being Encouraged to Consider Suicide” (Newsweek)
28-year-old woman in The Netherlands Chooses Medical Suicide due to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (Yahoo) Note—Chronic Fatigue is so bad that Women’s World Cup star Michelle Ackers—played professionally with it simply by altering her diet and routines (Source: Washington Post)
Suicide for people with Depression may be coming to Canada in 2024 (NY Times)
I’m not 100% sure Mandisa took her own life. And if she did, there’s no way we could know if anti-suicide messaging would have helped save her.
But, we can be sure that anti-suicide messaging is less frequent than in the past…because now suicide has…weird advocates.
And it’s quite literally killing people who don’t need to die, and who very likely would gone on to have much better lives with treatment other than being medically whacked by a doctor.
[two]
You know those protests at Columbia University? It’s the stuff of the very, very rich.
The 114 anti-Israel protesters who were busted at Columbia on Thursday include members of the upper crust: an intern for New York State Attorney General Letitia James — and the daughter of a prominent UPS executive who killed an elderly couple with her truck as a teenager and got off with a slap on the wrist.
A Post deep-dive into the backgrounds of the protesters shows many list multimillion-dollar mansions as their home addresses, according to sources, and come from wealthy and powerful families.
Also cuffed and removed from the Columbia campus was Isabel Jennifer Seward, daughter of high-ranking UPS executive William J. Seward.
In 2020, at the age of 16, Isabel veered her Toyota Tacoma pickup truck across a double yellow line on US Route 7 in Charlotte, Vermont, killing Chet and Connie Hawkins, a married couple in their 70s, according to a report by the Barre Montpelier Times Argus.
She pleaded no contest to a civil traffic ticket for “driving on roadways laned for traffic” and was issued a $220 fine — which her mother paid, according to the Rutland Herald.
Sorry, but how are you “protesting genocide” when you killed an elderly couple, and got the punishment of an Ivy League education?
The brilliant Rob Henderson (please go buy his new book) points out that protesting is the sport of the very rich…and quite poor. The middle class has to show up to work.
According to Henderson, both the very rich (who’s parents can bail them out of MANSLAUGHTER, we just learned) and the poor (who are either not working or in easily replaceable jobs) can afford to be off the books while they sit in jail for a few days.
The middle class…can’t take that kind of financial hit without facing significant consequences.
[three]
Marvel Studios just dropped a very un-Marvel trailer for Deadpool & Wolverine, full of excessive profanity, gore…and cocaine jokes (don’t watch this with your kids listening, obviously).
Perhaps the Disney-owned studio is ready to take some big swings…because they need the money.
A new report confirmed what many expected, two flops by Marvel Studios in 2023 lost money for the company.
Gone are the days of everything Kevin Feige touching turning to gold. The MCU has been a mixed bag of fan reactions and audience reception since 2021. Phases 4 and 5 have offered high points like Spider-Man: No Way Home, but also lows like Eternals, Secret Invasion, or Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania.
Unfortunately, this negative word of mouth and ill will among some fans has caught up with the once untouchable Marvel Studios.
A recent Bloomberg report confirmed that two Marvel Studios films in 2023 lost money: The Marvels and Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania.
This should not come as a surprise, as the box office can sometimes speak for itself.
The Marvels is the single worst theatrical performance in MCU history.
Not only did it earn a record-low $206.1 million at the global box office, but its reported budget ballooned up to $274.8 million (per The Numbers), making it the fourth most expensive film in MCU history.
While The Marvels' theatrical run was the most catastrophic in studio history, Quantumania got 2023 off to a surprisingly bumpy start.
Throughout the late 2000’s-2010’s, Marvel movies were a money printing machine. But after Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame combined for nearly $5 billion in ticket sales, the studio has been releasing projects with less-than-stellar quality control, and can’t seem to make their newer characters as popular as Ironman, Captain America, et. al.
The issue of wokeness and force-fed messaging getting in the way of the story is certainly a factor here…but just saying Marvel “went woke and went broke” is far too simplistic. The number one reason the studio fell from grace with fans is simply a case of too much…too fast. Disney declared quantity, not quality, to be job one.
It is sci-fi, the genre with a “do over” button…and it looks like Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman will be doing some time/dimension hopping...which means Marvel may use this movie to fix one of their glaring issues—the fact that the studio was forced to fire their next big villain, Jonathan Majors, for domestic violence.
[four]
I have, for the most part, been a Kanye West defender as a brilliant—if disturbed—artist, from when Conservatives hated him (calling out Dubya on that telethon), to when Liberals hated him (the MAGA hat, The White Lives Matter shirt)…but even I’m out on trying to defend the Chicago-born rapper this time around.
Kanye West has his sights set on a new business venture, and it's all about people having sex on camera -- the guy's looking to professionally dive into porn at long last ... TMZ has learned.
A rep for Yeezy tells TMZ ... Ye's been kicking around the idea of launching his own pornography studio and brand for a while -- and now, we're told he seems dead set on doing it ... 'cause he and his partners are in advanced talks to actually get something up and running.
This is especially disturbing, as West credits a porn addiction for his divorce from Kim Kardashian.
From Hip Hop DX:
During his posting spree, Kanye admitted “pornography destroyed my family” while sharing a photo of Victoria Villarroel, a former assistant to Kylie Jenner, the half-sister of his ex-wife Kim Kardashian.
“Don’t let Kris make you do playboy like she made [Kylie] and Kim do,” he wrote, referencing the sisters’ respective Playboy magazine shoots that were reportedly orchestrated by their mother Kris Jenner.
He added: “Hollywood is a giant brothel Pornography destroyed my family I deal with the addiction instagram promotes it Not gonna let it happen to Northy and Chicago.”
Kanye isn’t alone, as 56% of divorce cases involve one party having an “obsessive interest in pornographic websites.” Aside from the moral arguments here (which West has made himself, due to his divorce), there are also very serious issues being brought to light from medical studies.
From The Guardian:
A study of 2,000 British men has reported that 50% of those in their 30s were having trouble getting and maintaining an erection. While this does not mean that they suffer from erectile dysfunction (ED), or have such difficulties all the time, male performance anxiety is thought to be on the increase (among gay as well as straight men). They fear they’ll fail to be erect enough to have sex – unlike “real men” who are always ready for action. What’s striking is that this is one of the first generations to be overloaded from an early age with easily accessible hardcore internet porn.
To close this out…Conservative commentator Alex Clark rightly pointed to the hypocrisy between how West is being treated vs. his rival Taylor Swift:
Strange times, indeed.
[five]
As always, let’s head into the weekend with a pop culture roundup:
Woah. Not only does the brilliant (but inconsistent) M. Night Shyamalan have a new movie coming out as a director, he’s also producing this very Hitchcock-ian thriller/horror/mystery, The Watchers.
A young woman gets stranded deep in the Irish forest…and then, well I just hope this isn’t too close to M. Night’s other scary forest movie, The Village.
Catch it in June. Looks worthy of a trip to the local multiplex.
Well, dang. Zoe Kravitz (Mad Max: Fury Road, The Batman) looks like she’s going to pull off a heck of a directorial debut with Blink Twice, which looks like a combination of Knives Out: Glass Onion (island mystery) and a bunch of horror/thrillers that play with the victims memories.
I’m sold. Catch it in theaters this August.
The Ben Affleck and Matt Damon produced documentary looks at the Bosnian War, the local music scene during the conflict (hard to imagine, but true) and how U2 came to raise money and awareness for the cause, and how the Irish quartet played a post-war concert in the newly liberated city of Sarajevo for 45,000 fans.
The documentary does feature an interview with Bill Clinton, who largely ignored the conflict that produced 100,000 deaths, many of whom were civilians. So that’s…uhhh…and interesting choice.
On Paramount+ in May.
[new music]
It may be a bit strange for some, but Aaron West and the Roaring Twenties…isn’t a real person. Rather, it’s the creative side project of Dan Campbell of Pennyslvania-based punk outfit The Wonder Years, who was looking to stretch both his guitar and lyric writing skills in a new direction.
Campbell created a persona of a struggling musician (something he no longer was) and wrote songs about the fictional life of Aaron West. It may sound weird…but the songs are great. The album is a top 5 (so far) for me of 2024. The super infectious “Alone at St. Luke’s” is a great starting point song to get introduced to the band (track 5).
Until the next one,
-sth