Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey: A Confucian Tale

It's been a busy year for me, which is why I haven't written anything on here since my favorite 2025 movies list toward the beginning of this year. Like just about everyone else, though, I did make time to watch The Odyssey. I saw it the Tuesday after it opened with my wife, then in imax (or at least the best imitation of it available in San Diego) with a friend. Overall, I really liked it!

In the lead up to its release, many of the worst types of rightwing commentators tried to get their audience to skip the movie due to Nolan casting Lupita Nyong'o as Helen of Troy and Elliot Paige as... well, a pretty unimportant side character that they just couldn't help but whine about anyway. Their attempt to take momentum away from the movie failed spectacularly, of course, but it has created some discourse around what exactly the its story is communicating thematically. For some, this has meant trying to figure out where it stands politically.

For me, I'm not sure if The Odyssey fits anywhere neatly on the standard political spectrum. Since I started reflecting on what school of thought I could most clearly identify in the story and its themes, I just couldn't find a clean fit with liberalism, conservatism, socialism, or any other "-ism" that we usually think about. Instead, I thought of the ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius. While I doubt it was intentional, I think Christopher Nolan ultimately made a film best understood through a Confucian lens.

The rest of this post will, of course, be dedicated to explaining what led me to this conclusion. That means THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. If you haven't seen the movie, I'd highly recommend watching it before reading this!

CHRISTOPHER NOLAN'S THE ODYSSEY

Matt Damon as Odysseus

What else can be said about that great epic poem The Odyssey? It's one of the oldest stories we have in recorded human history. It tells the tale of Odysseus, a brilliant general who served in the Trojan War, a war whose details (and perhaps even very existence) historians of the ancient world still debate to this day. It follows Odysseus as he makes his way home. Along the way goes through as many trials and hardships as one could possibly imagine. Fortunately for him, he's helped by many people and even some gods throughout his journey, who all help give him a fighting chance against everything he encounters. When he finally gets home, he then has to reclaim his household in a showdown against all the suitors for his wife that have taken advantage of his absence.

Nolan makes some interesting choices when telling his version of the story. First off, the gods are barely present. He sets the tone for this pretty quickly, beginning the movie with a text scroll that says this tale takes place "in a time of apparent magic." Note the word "apparent" there, casting doubt as to whether there is really any magic at all. There is, of course, at least a little bit in that world- there are giants and monsters, spells and prophecies, among other things- but gods? Only one god regularly shows up in the movie: Athena, played by Zendaya. We'll get to her in a minute.

As for Odysseus himself, this is a man who (like most Christopher Nolan protagonists) carries the weight of the world on his shoulders. Whereas the traditional tale casts him in the light of glory, this movie places him in a shadow of responsibility and regret. We follow him on his journey home as the weight of this responsibility and regret bear down on him.

Like in the traditional tale, Odysseus is helped by people along the way. Unlike the traditional tale, Nolan emphasizes "Zeus's law", which tells people to help and trust others because you don't know who may be a god in disguise. Because Nolan loves slapping you in the face with ideas he wants to get across in his movies (I say that affectionately, I like him a lot as a director), we're regularly reminded of the importance of Zeus's law toward maintaining some sort of civilized society in the world.

 

I love you Chris, please keep making good movies where the characters explicitly tell us your ideas

What we find out at the end, though, is that Odysseus carries the regret that he does because he violated Zeus's law in a profound way. The Trojan horse ploy that is portrayed as a brilliant tactic earlier in the movie (and indeed in the entire original tale itself) is shown from a different angle here, and it's not a positive one. It makes sense when you think about it. After all, ultimately what the Greeks did by hiding in the horse and attacking Troy was violate social trust in order to go about slaughtering an entire city. It's a brilliant tactic, but also pretty messed up when you really think about it. And boy has Odysseus thought about it!

This takes us back to Athena. The Athena entity we've seen throughout the movie turns out to be the spitting image of a priestess the Greek forces slaughtered in part of their rampage against Troy. We don't know for sure if this entity who has followed Odysseus throughout the movie truly is Athena, or the ghost of the woman he killed, or perhaps even just a figment of his guilt-ridden imagination. Ultimately, it doesn't matter. What matters is that he betrayed Zeus's law, and the "Athena" that's followed him on his journey is a reminder of that betrayal. Because really it's a betrayal of humanity itself, gods or no gods.

From there, Odysseus goes about defeating the suitors who have taken advantage of Zeus's law by mooching off of his household in the years preceding his return. Taking on the suitors is itself an act that violates Zeus's law, though, which is why he fights the suitors alone and doesn't let his son Telemachus assist him in the main battle. He doesn't want Telemachus to have to carry the weight of the sins he has. So he fights the suitors himself. Eventually he triumphs and goes into exile with his wife Penelope to begin atoning for what he has done. The ending reflects on everything that has happened. We see the breakdown of society through the erosion of Zeus's law, but also a glimmer of hope in the possibility of renewal.

So what does this have to do with Confucianism? Before answering that question, let's have a quick crash course on Confucianism itself. 

 

A BRIEF CRASH COURSE ON CONFUCIAN ETHICS

The Warring States period in Ancient China 

Chinese civilization goes back to ancient times. Many dynasties have risen and fallen through Chinese history. Their longest lasting dynasty, the Zhou Dynasty, technically lasted from around 1100 BCE to around 250 BCE. During the last two hundred years or so of the Dynasty, though, war and chaos engulfed the land. Historians call this tail end of the Zhou Dynasty the "Warring States" period for reasons you can probably guess from the name. It was in this era that Confucius, along with many other iconic ancient Chinese philosophers, emerged.

Confucianism is based in large part around social relations and maintaining societal harmony. One of its core tenants is the idea of the "five relations" that define society*, which are ruler/subject, parent/child, husband/wife, elder sibling/younger sibling, and friend/friend. The idea was that if everyone put proper effort into cultivating and maintaining these relationships, you would have social harmony. We are social creatures, after all, and our relationships with one another are key components of our lives both individually as people and collectively as a society. If we all had healthy relationships in our own lives, then, that would ripple outward to create a healthy society.

With that said, all of these relationships are hierarchical except for friend/friend. The subject is expected to obey the ruler, the child the parent, the wife the husband, and the younger sibling the elder sibling. In that way, there's something conservative about Confucianism. At the same time, though, Confucius made it explicitly clear that, while these relationships were hierarchical, there was mutual obligation on both sides. Rulers had to take care of their subjects, parents had to take care of their children, and so on. This takes us to the concept of "ren."

"Ren" (also translated as "jen") is a Chinese idea that can roughly be translated to "humanness" or "benevolence." For Confucius, ren is the crucial ingredient to make everything work. We all must be good to one another regardless of our place in any given hierarchy for society to function. If you're a ruler, for example, you need to treat your subjects well and look out for their well-being. Simply put, you need to fulfill your end of the bargain. This is a large part of why, during his own lifetime, Confucius was dismissed as too idealistic when he tried to become an advisor to a variety of local Zhou-era leaders. They wanted advisors that would tell them how to win wars and build a state, not someone preaching the importance of humanity toward your fellow human beings.

 
A status of Confucius in Shanghai, China 

So we have these five relationships and ren as two of the key underpinnings of Confucianism. But how does one actually act to try to achieve these things? There are many things Confucius would encourage, ranging from educating and refining yourself toward becoming a "gentleman" ("junzi" or "jun-tzu"**) to simply just being decent to your fellow human beings in the spirit of ren. But one particular thing that he placed a lot of emphasis on was ritual ("li"). He was very much in favor of people practicing ancient traditional Chinese rituals, such as those related to ancestor worship.

Interestingly enough, though, he did not necessarily believe in the divinity of these rituals. He did not write much about doing them so that you would get a good harvest or be able to literally communicate with your ancestors. Rather, he believed the act itself of participating sincerely in these rituals was what mattered, because it taught you to revere something greater than yourself- as he put it, to teach you to "live life as a reverential bow." It also put you into community with those around you, strengthening your social bonds with them. For Confucius, then, ritual wasn't necessarily about divine rewards, but about the personal and societal effects that such rituals cultivated.

There is, of course, much more that could be said about Confucianism, but these are some of its most important concepts, as well as some of those most relevant to Nolan's film. So lets get to showing how the two are connected. 

*I modernized these relationships (just like Christopher Nolan modernized The Odyssey!), because originally they were more gendered- parent/child was father/son, for example. Shit was super sexist back in the day, so women were not assumed to be an important part of philosophical thinking.

**Though "junzi" is the term more often used, "jun-tzu" is a much better phonetic translation of the term.  

 

TYING IT ALL TOGETHER 

Honestly I just Googled "Confucius Ancient Greece" hoping I'd find a suitable pic, and I did!

So why is Confucianism such a good lens through which to view Nolan's The Odyssey? Let's start by looking at the relationships in the movie. We saw almost all of Confucius's five relations play out. Odysseus is a king, and we see loyal subjects like Eumaeus, his old servant. We of course see his husband/wife dynamic with Penelope and his father/son dynamic with Telemachus, and we even see a bit of a friend/friend dynamic with his second in command, Eurylochus. The only one we don't see is elder sibling/younger sibling, though a bad example of that dynamic sort of plays out between Telemachus and Antinous, played in a delightfully villainous way by Robert Pattinson.

It's worth noting that Nolan doesn't really seem to question the fundamental inequalities of these relationships themselves. Eumaeus is basically a slave in the movie and is explicitly a slave in the original story, but Nolan doesn't really question the justness of that dynamic any more than the original tale does. Instead, we get the impression that Damon's Odysseus was a good king to Eumaeus and the rest of his subjects, hence Eumaeus's loyalty. Same with the care between Odysseus and Penelope. Penelope is devoted to her husband and anxiously awaits his return, even twenty years later. While she expresses frustration at how systemic misogyny has prevented her from being able to take the reigns in Odysseus's absence, she still mostly just wants him back as her king and husband (as she says explicitly in an argument with Telamachus).

In terms of Odysseus's relations with those around him, then, Confucius would approve of Odysseus. He would see that Odysseus had fulfilled his obligations as a good king to his subjects, and in turn had the enduring loyalty of the best among them. But that is not the whole story, of course.

 
Odysseus and some of the people closest to him, in some way or another

While Odysseus may have done a good job ruling justly, as a general he profoundly violated Zeus's law in what he did with the Trojan horse. The betrayal of trust he masterminded was not only a violation in and of itself, but led to the slaughter of an entire town.

Speaking in Confucian terms, Odysseus obviously violated the spirit of ren/humanness through his actions. It's not very humane to deceive your enemies with promises of peace and slaughter everyone, including civilians. But it was more than that. Because by breaking Zeus's law, he was also breaking a shared societal practice of social trust that helped create functioning societies in the Greek world. He not only defied the spirit of ren, then, but also li/ritual. In this case, the two were one and the same.

While his actions angered the gods, we don't actually see the gods themselves. What we do see, though, is how regression from Zeus's law of hospitality and trust is making the human worse a worse place. This takes us back to Confucius's outlook on rituals- how the personal and social effects of a ritual are what we should pay attention to. That's what Nolan is paying attention to in his version of The Odyssey. Without humanity and shared ritual to improve us as people and connect us with one another, all is lost. Or at least all that is worth preserving.

 

CLOSING THOUGHTS 

Nolan's story ends lamenting the descent from civilization to chaos and barbarity. Confucius and the other philosophers of his day cultivated their philosophy during the Warring States era, which itself was an era partially defined by the sort of chaos and barbarity Nolan's Odysseus helps unleash on the Greek world. In our own world, too, international law and cooperation are eroding at an alarming rate. Gaza is perhaps the ugliest example of that in recent years, but it is by no means the only example.

Yet we should neither idealize the past, nor give into despair. The post-World War 2 order that defined our world until the present had some good things about it, but it also had great acts of barbarity within it too. Even in the eight decades since World War 2 ended, we've seen plenty of atrocities, war crimes, and even genocides. Some of these happened by the very "protectors" of the international order, such as the United States and Great Britain. While things will likely only get worse as our international institutions of diplomacy erode, we're not leaving behind an innocent world order. In many ways, its legitimacy has eroded thanks in part to its own crimes, hypocrisies, and excesses. Much like with Odysseus and the erosion of Zeus's law.

As for not giving into despair, it was during the Warring States era that Confucius and his fellow philosophers came up with the schools of thought that they did, changing China forever. Many of these philosophers would inspired countless great acts, and beautiful forms of cultural and societal connection. In our world, we are ruled by some of the most malignant, barbaric, vile people who have ever held power. But there are good people fighting to make themselves heard, too. And as a historian I can confidently say that you never know what will happen next after a period like this- sometimes things do get worse, but other times the worst comes just before things get better. Or, to quote another Nolan classic, "the night is darkest just before the dawn."

I don't know what's next for us in this world. All I know is that we can, and should, try our best to make it better in whatever ways we can. Things are tough, but they've been tough for most people through human history. Better things have never come without struggle. Let's do what we can, while we can, and hope for a better tomorrow. 

Top Everything of 2025

Another year in the books. Like every year, there were too many worthwhile things for me to make a single list for only one category. So, also like every year, I'm dropping a list with my top picks for a variety of categories. With that said, though, expect an upcoming post or two about movies from 2025, since I did get the chance to watch more movies last year than usual.

A quick note: I am in the process of writing a book right now (an introductory guide to the roots and rise of the Nazis), so most entries will be shorter than they have been in past years. I was initially going to have less categories than usual, but none of them felt right to get rid of. So, brevity will be the key for much of this year's list.

Anyway, these are my picks for what stood out to me in 2025. Enjoy! 

 

Movie: One Battle After Another

This almost feels like a boring pick considering how much attention it has received, but sometimes a near-universally acclaimed movie gets that much praise for a reason. Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, it follows Leonardo DiCaprio as a burnt out ex-revolutionary trying to protect his daughter as his and his baby mama's past come back to haunt them. The main villain, a goofy yet terrifying military officer played masterfully by Sean Penn, is an imposing foe.

Everything about One Battle After Another is incredible: the directing, the writing, the acting, the editing, the score, everything. It all comes together to make something special, something that perfectly balances style and substance. It's one of those rare movies that everyone from hardcore movie buffs to people who only watch movies once in a while can enjoy. I don't want to say too much more because it's one of those movies you don't want to know too much about beforehand, but if you haven't seen it, check it out!

 

Comedy Movie: No Other Choice

While this movie won't release widely until early 2026, it had a limited release in December. I was lucky enough to catch an early IMAX screening of it. It's directed by Park Chan-wook, who made Oldboy, The Handmaiden, and Decision to Leave, among others. He's not only arguably South Korea's most celebrated filmmaker, but one of the best filmmakers working today of any country.

Getting to the movie itself, No Other Choice is a black comedy thriller about a man (played by the incredible Lee Byung-hun) who works as a senior employee at a paper company. When the company is bought out by a bigger US company, it lays off a huge chunk of the Korean employees, including the protagonist. He then has to try to find a new job, but that proves harder than expected considering the job market. This then pushes him to try more... drastic measures to get a new job.

The thematic focus of this dark comedy is the struggles created by modern capitalism. It's reminiscent of Parasite in a broad sense, though there are some key differences. I'd say, as a whole, Parasite is a better film in terms of how it executes tension and theme, but this movie is funnier. You'll very rarely go more than a minute or two without at least chuckling, and you'll be laughing often. There's one scene in the middle that had me and the audience I watched it with howling. It was easily the funniest scene I saw in 2025. While the subject matter of this film is actually pretty heavy when you think about it, it's told in such a funny, entertaining way that it all goes down smooth.

  

Animated Movie: K-Pop Demon Hunters 

Unless you spent 2025 in a Tibetan monastery, you probably heard about K-Pop Demon Hunters. The story follows a trio of Korean girls who live a double life: they are both world-famous K-pop stars and demon hunters. The two feed into each other, in fact. Their music helps them keep the world of demons at bay. The main character of the movie, Rumi, is one of these girls, but she has a secret. She herself is part demon. Not even her two squad mates know this. A central question of the movie is: should you hide a 'bad' part of yourself?

The answer, of course, is no. As things unfold, she learns to be herself and embrace that side of her, as you could imagine from a kid's movie. There is also a bad boy love interest who himself is part demon; also as you can probably guess, he's not as bad as you would initially think, and ultimately has a change of heart. The story of K-Pop Demon Hunters is good but predictable, and drops the ball with the demon metaphor. In fact, I've also heard Korean friends criticize the portrayal of Korean spirits and deities as villainous demons, but that's only a message I can pass along, not one I can meaningfully comment on. What works about the story is the dynamic between the main character and her two best friends, as well as her dynamic with the bad boy love interest. It may be relatively predictable, but there's a real sincerity to it.

The best part of this movie, though, is the music. That's what really elevated it above the competition for me this year. While I didn't like any of the Saja Boy songs that much, I like all of the main group's songs. Golden and This is What it Sounds Like in particular are two of my favorite songs of the year. Maybe even two of my favorite songs from a movie soundtrack this decade. 

 

Actor: Benicio del Toro  

This was an incredible year for acting, making this a difficult category to narrow down. Stellan Skarsgård was great in Sentimental Value and Andor, Lee Byung-hun was great in No Other Choice and Squid Game, and Michael B. Jordan (my choice for actor of the year in both 2018 and 2015) was great in Sinners and... well, Sinners again, since he played two roles. And those are just the actors who had multiple roles this year. Wagner Moura in The Secret Agent, Timothee Chalamet in Marty Supreme, and Joel Edgerton in Train Dreams were all incredible in their singular roles this year.

Ultimately, though, I had to go with the actor who gave life to my favorite film character of the year. In One Battle After Another, Benicio del Toro plays Sensei Sergio, a Mexican-American karate instructor who is coolness personified. Though he is dragged into the mess that transpires around DiCaprio's character, he manages to always keep calm, despite certain things that he has going on himself that could get him in huge trouble if found out. He is easily not just my favorite movie character of the year, but one of my favorite movie characters of the decade.

In addition to that role, he also plays a ruthless yet perpetually calm businessman named Anatole Korda in Wes Anderon's The Phoenician Scheme (funny to think that del Toro played two stoic characters with lots of influence on the people around them in a movie directed by a guy with the last name Anderson this year). Korda is trying to form a relationship with his daughter, who makes his heir in an attempt to connect with her. Like with most Wes Anderson movies, there a lot of emotional distance between the characters and the viewers. By the end of the movie, though, you see that there's a lot more to Korda than you initially think. That is, in large part, thanks to del Toro breathing so much life into the role.

Benicio del Toro is one of the best actors working today, and great representation for Latinos. He's got a lot of range, but really seems to be most at home when he's playing calm, cool, collected characters. I'm glad we have him.

 

Actress: Jessie Buckley 

Like with best actor, this is another extremely stacked category. Unlike best actor there aren't as many actresses pulling strong double duty (or at least among the movies/shows I've seen), but quite a few actresses put in excellent singular performances. Eva Victor in Sorry, Baby, Tessa Thompson in Hedda, and pretty much all the women in One Battle After Another (Chase Infiniti, Teyana Taylor, Regina Hall) and Sentimental Value (Renata Reinsve, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Elle Fanning) really knocked it out of the park this year.

But, if I had to go with one actress/performance, I have to go with the one that moved me more than any other I saw this year. That would be Jessie Buckley as the protagonist in Hamnet. It stars Buckley as Agnes Shakespeare, the wife of William Shakespeare. The story follows the couple as they meet, fall in love, start a family, and have kids. Then tragedy strikes. It's a tragedy that actually did take place for the couple in real life, though the details around it aren't known. In fact, because there are no records about what actually happened during this tragedy, the story of the movie is based on a novel that simply speculates on what happened.

If the title sounds like his iconic work Hamlet, that's not a coincidence. According to this movie, it's William's grief channeled into his play. Agnes, though, is the protagonist. Initially, after the tragedy hits about halfway through, it creates distance between her and William. She blames him for seemingly caring more about his plays than his family. The rest of the story follows her on a really moving journey that I don't want to say more about in case you're reading this without having seen it.

What I will say, though, is that Buckley does an incredible job in her role. The way she carries the final scene in particular is one of the most emotionally affecting performances I've ever seen. She's been talked about as the favorite to win the Oscar this year for best actress, and I think she completely deserves it.

 

TV Show: Andor

While I don't watch that much TV, I do have series that I pay attention to. One series I really like, Righteous Gemstones, did a great job with its final season this year. In other years that could've been my pick for this category. Unfortunately for Danny McBride's hilarious dramedy series, however, Andor (which was also my TV show pick for 2022) really knocked it out of the park.

Like with the first season, this season does a great job of being a Star Wars show for adults (and smart teens). It's not just interested in lightsabers and Jedi (in fact, it's not interested in those things at all), it's interested in its themes, characters, and world-building. Rather than many other Star Wars spinoffs, which focus on what fans already like from the universe, Andor makes the universe more complicated and interesting by delving into exactly what it takes to spark a rebellion against an evil galactic empire.

If there's one different between this season and the first, it's about the role of the protagonist, Cassian Andor. In the first season, he goes from cynical rogue to dedicated revolutionary. In this season his character is already set. While he is still the main vantage character, there is more attention paid to the characters and world around him as the series moves toward its conclusion, which ends right where A New Hope begins. It's a fantastic season of television that really is the best sort of storytelling for an existing franchise. The Andor series is easily my favorite Star Wars saga next to the original trilogy. It may even be better.

 

Male MMA Fighters: Islam Makhachev

Islam Makhachev has come a long way in his MMA career. Starting as a one dimensional grappler, he has now beaten some worthy opponents and developed other aspects of his game, even if his wrestling is still by far his strong asset. Despite the worthy opponent's he's beat, though, his biggest issue is that he has yet to face enough of them. This has mostly not been his fault (he's had fights with good opponents fall through, plus the lightweight division in general has fallen off in recent years), but he does what he can in the position he's in.

In 2025, Islam first faced and defeated Renato Moicano. He had originally been scheduled to face Arman Tsarukyan, a more championship-caliber opponent, but Tsarukyan pulled out the day before due to injury. Moicano offered to step in. Islam accepted in order to save the event and beat him in the first round by submission. In doing so, he broke the record for UFC lightweight title defenses (4). 

Islam's next was far more impressive. He moved up in weight and fought the welterweight champion, Jack Della Maddalena. He won by a dominant decision, managing the incredibly difficult task of becoming the champion for the weight class above him. This is impressive on its own, but especially against Della Maddalena, one of the better fighters in the UFC today. He now has tied former middleweight champion Anderson Silva for longest winning streak (16).

Overall, Islam had an incredible 2025 for the records he set and the fact he became champion for the weight class above his own. While his quality of opposition isn't the strongest, it's not really his fault that he has had so many fights either fall through or end with last minute replacements. he has beaten just above everyone put in front of him, which is damn impressive.

 

Female MMA Fighter: Valentina Shevchenko

What more can be said about Shevchenko? She's one of the best women to ever compete in combat sports. She was my pick for 2020 female fighter of the year and, honestly, could've easily been my pick a couple other times. She's well-rounded, composed, and strategic.

In 2025, she beat Manon Fiorot and Zhang Weili. While Fiorot is a solid opponent, Zhang is a world-class one. While Zhang did move up in weight (and indeed looked much smaller than Valentina in their fight), she's still a tough, skilled opponent who is a difficult fight for anyone. Beating her is no small feat.

 

MMA Fighter I Hope Bounces Back: Zhang Weili

I love Zhang and what she brings to MMA. Aside from her skills as a fighter, it's clear that she is a true martial artist in spirit. All of her social media posts about training are a true celebration of martial arts, and by all accounts she always is nothing but respectful and attentive wherever and whenever she trains. She is a great ambassador for MMA and the true beauty of martial arts. I hope she is able to recover from her loss to Shevchenko and come back better than ever. The MMA world needs martial artists like her. 

 

MMA Fight: Lopes vs Silva

Sometimes a good old fashioned brawl is just what you need. While there was some good fight technique on display, ultimately this was mostly a fun barn-burner where both fighters put it all on the line. Diego Lopes remains one of the most entertaining fighters in the UFC.

 

Scientific Discovery: Life On Another Planet?

I know it seems like I choose something involving possible life on another planet every other year on this list, but what can I say? I love astronomy, and I'm fascinated by the idea of life on other planets.

In April, the James Webb Space Telescope gave us data about the planet K2-18b. By looking at the light that filtered through the planet's atmosphere, scientists saw a sign of possible life. Specifically, they saw two gases (dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide) that, on our planet at least, are produced by living things like algae. What's extra interesting is that, even before this, K2-18b was already in the conversation as a planet that may contain life due to being an ocean-covered planet that may be temperate enough to host living organisms. This new discovery only adds to the tantalizing possibility that there may indeed be life on the planet.

 

Scientific Achievement: Pig Organ Transplants

Any scientific achievement that preserves human life is worth celebrating (assuming those achievements don't come at the expense of others, of course). In recent years, scientists have experimented with transplants using pig organs because their organs have similar traits to our own. Usually, however, transplants don't really work because our bodies reject the non-human organs.  

In this case, surgeons gave a gene-edited pig kidney to a man named Tim Andrews. This is the fourth such transplant that has happened, but this one is noteworthy because Andrews lived with the kidney for a record 271 days before it had to be removed. The gene-editing of the kidney and medicine schedule for Andrews worked incredibly well, considering the human body would never accept such an organ at all otherwise.

If this technology can be further developed, people will be able to live years with pig organs. Maybe even longer. It may not be sexy to think about people having pig organs inside them, but in a time where there is a shortage of donated organs for medical use, anything we can do to help others is worth doing.

 

Bullshit News Story: "Venezuelan Drug Traffickers"

In September 2025, the Trump regime began killing random fishermen in the Caribbean, accusing them of being cartel members. They did so without giving any sort of evidence that the individuals killed were involved in the drug trade. They also bizarrely accused them of smuggling fentanyl, rather than cocaine (you'd think they would at least try to lie better.

Later on in 2025, President Trump pardoned former conservative Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, who had been sentenced to forty five years in prison for conspiring to smuggle over four hundred tons of cocaine into the United States. And we're still supposed to believe that the murders of these fishermen in the Caribbean were able drug smuggling.

 It's a bit surreal writing this post in January after the Trump regime invaded Venezuela and kidnapped President Maduro. While Maduro is certainly not my favorite world leader, he is the sovereign leader of Venezuela. The US does not have the right to decide it can just invade a country for no real reason. These killings of random fishermen were the ugly pretext, an attempt to claim they were on a mission to fight drug cartels. But, again, the flimsy evidence alongside the pardoning of Orlando Hernández shows how little the truth matters in any of this.

 

Actual News Story: Continued Murder in Gaza

The genocide in Gaza started under Joe Biden. It was a genocide which he gave just about unconditional support to. Kamala tried to distance herself from the genocide in rhetoric, but gave no concrete policy explanations for exactly what she would do different. Donald Trump did something similar, except even more chaotically, stupidly, and dishonestly; sometimes he claimed he would bring peace between the two sides, other times he crudely referred to political opponents as "Palestinians" in a bizarre, gross case of 1800s-style racism.

Upon becoming president, Trump more or less continued Biden's policy of letting Israel to whatever it wanted. There were some differences in the details (he applied a bit more pressure on Israel than Biden had, yet also cracked down more on refugees coming from Palestine), but the broad outline was the same. Eventually, however, Trump did force Netanyahu to come to the table, leading to negotiations that created a ceasefire in October. That could have been a positive (if not way too late) development, if not for the fact that the ceasefire never really happened.

Yes, fighting between the two sides largely stopped. Mostly from the Palestinian side. Meanwhile, Israel has killed more than 400 Palestinians since the "ceasefire" went into effect. They may have slowed down the slaughter, but they're still consistently killing Gazans. Mostly civilians. The genocide has already been an incredible stain on humanity; unfortunately for the people of Gaza, there is still no real end in sight for the suffering.

 

Photo: Immigrant S.O.S. Call for Help

Another absurd aspect to everything the US is doing to Venezuelans (and Caribbean fishermen in general) is the fact they're pretending to do this out of concern for Venezuelans themselves. Meanwhile, Venezuelan migrants held in US detention centers formed an S.O.S. sign, signaling both the awful conditions they faced and their worry that they might get shipped off to one of the many shady super-prisons in El Salvador. It's a striking reflection of just how barbaric our immigration system is.

 

Badass: Gaza Aid Flotillas

Since the genocide in Gaza began, many around the world have tried to help in whatever small ways they can. Most of the time that meant demonstrations, donations to aid groups, and boycotting Israeli goods. In June of 2025, there was a group of particularly noble people who wanted to do more. They wanted to break the siege Israel imposed on Gaza and deliver aid directly.

Twelve brave souls rode aboard a boat called the Madleen through the Mediterranean to deliver vital aid to the people of Gaza. On the way, people who supported Israel's genocide harassed and even attacked the Madleen, but they rode on. On June 9th, however, the Israeli military seized the Madleen, imprisoned everyone aboard, and eventually deported them. The aid was not given to the people of Gaza.

This only inspired more action, with more people. More waves of flotillas departed, trying to get aid to the people of Gaza. An especially big wave of vessels set sail in October. Some governments, including Spain and Greece, claimed they would protect the flotillas. Unfortunately, while a few of these governments did follow through on sending escorts, they abandoned the flotilla vessels once they got close to Israel. None ever made it to the shores of Gaza.

It's a hard pill to swallow to know that the murders won. But, we can at least celebrate the courage of those on the vessels themselves. There have been more attempts since for flotillas to bring aid to Gaza. There are even more attempts being planned for 2026. Hopefully there will be a break and Gaza can get relief from the outside world that isn't controlled by the very people massacring them. 

Thoughts on the New Superman Movie

Superman has just about always been my favorite superhero. Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to be the big, blue boy scout. Not just in terms of his powers, but to truly be like him. Of course I wanted the super strength and ability to fly, but I also wanted to live up to the example he set.

During my high school years I turned away from superheroes in general, but then The Dark Knight got me back into them again. I jumped on the Batman hype train like everyone else, but within a few years I was back to Superman being my favorite. Every time a big Superman project got announced, I was paying attention. Whether a show or movie, I was there- sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.

This time around was no different. The moment James Gunn's Supes project was announced, I was interested. As more and more came out about it, I was genuinely excited. Then, finally, the day came. My wife and I watched it last Friday. We wore Superman shirts to the theater; her with the new logo, me with the more classic one. 

Ultimately, I really liked the movie. The fun and sincerity James Gunn and everyone else infused into it brought me a lot of joy. For those who like straightforward movie ratings, I'd give it an 8/10 and call it one of the better Blockbuster movies in recent years. If you're a fan of Superman (or even just the genre in general), check it out. You'll likely have a good time.

When it comes to a Superman project, though, I can't just give a simple score and leave it at that. Especially for one like this- one where so many things work, but not quite everything. Like I said above, I really liked this movie- but I didn't love it. I've been thinking about it quite a bit since seeing, trying to sort through exactly what did and didn't work for me. This post is what I've come up with.

Note that I will not have any spoilers here, other than talking about stuff that either happens within the first couple minutes of the movie or stuff that was revealed in the trailers. With that said, if you haven't seen the movie and want to go into it relatively fresh, it may be good to hold off on reading this post anyway. I personally prefer to go into movies relatively uninformed so that I can be surprised (hopefully pleasantly) by what I see. So don't worry about spoilers, but maybe considering holding off anyway.

Either way, enjoy! 

 

WHAT DID WORK FOR ME

1. What We Get of Lois and Clark

A lot of Superman fans say that, despite the relative overall quality of any given Superman movie, Superman and Lois themselves are usually cast pretty well. I agree with that statement for the most part. Still, sometimes even a well-cast Lois and Clark duo have no chemistry (looking at you Henry Cavill and Amy Adams). Luckily, this pairing of Lois and Clark work really well, both individually and as a couple.

Very early in the movie we get a great scene of a date night turning into Lois interviewing Superman after she pointed out she's rarely gotten the chance to do so. The interview starts off well, but Lois completely transitions into journalist mode and grills him to the point it starts a fight between them. It's a perfect scene to show their dynamic, including how different they are and how Lois's dedication to being a tough, quality journalist can get in the way of her personal relationships.

Later on in the movie they reconcile and talk about what they love about each other. I'll leave it at that because it's further into the movie and therefore much more of a spoiler to talk about even in general terms, but what I like about it is that it captures why these two always fall in love with one another in every iteration of Superman. This and the previous scene are two of my favorite scenes in the movie. I wish they could've been built toward a little better, and that we could have had maybe another scene or two to trace out the arc of their relationship in this movie overall (consider this foreshadowing for later in this post), but the scenes in and of themselves are fantastic. 

2. Green Lantern and Mr Terrific

If you've seen any of the promotional material for this movie at all, you know that Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, and a guy named Mr Terrific are part of this movie as the "Justice Gang." Unfortunately Hawkgirl simply does not get much screen time or interesting things to do (other than one amazing moment at the end I won't spoil). Green Lantern and Mr Terrific, however, get plenty of shine in this movie.

Starting with Green Lantern, he's played in this movie by Nathan Fillion, probably best known for his role in the show Firefly. This Green Lantern he plays is named Guy Gardner, the most conceited and arrogant of the humans who have wielded the Green Lantern ring. In this movie, his high opinion of himself is played for effective laughs. He steals a lot of the scenes he's in with his big personality. Of all the times I laughed in the movie, Fillion's Green Lantern was usually involved.

Mr Terrific is a very different character. He's also a much more obscure one. He's basically a super genius inventor, but his costume is a cross between a tech genius and a cool 1970s black guy who would probably say stuff like "dig this, cool cat." The outfit reflects the character more broadly; he has all the smarts of the former, but all the style of the latter. It makes for a really compelling, original character. The fact he gets much more screen time than his teammates (and even many of the main cast) gives him even more room to shine. Ed Gathegi takes advantage of the opportunity in the role and creates one of the most memorable superheroes in years.

3. The Sincerity and Kindness

The sincerity and kindness of this version of Superman was a focus for James Gunn in the beginning. Gunn said in one interview: "for me, the center of it was about kindness in a world that isn't kind." In another interview he points out Superman is "an immigrant that came from other places and populated the country, but for me it is mostly a story that says basic human kindness is a value and is something we have lost."

Those quotes really set the tone for what's at the heart of this movie. Superman doesn't just defeat bad guys. He interactions with the people of Metropolis, remembers their names, cares about them, and tries to save everyone and everything he can- even a squirrel! In fact, this Superman is earnest to a bit of an embarrassing degree. He's teased more than once in the movie about what a boy scout he is. This is not a movie that views Superman the figure with the same sort of reverence the Richard Donner movies had for Superman.

But there's something lovely about that. Reeve's Superman is almost a guardian angel for humanity. This Superman is an overly earnest, vulnerable, borderline dorky human being who happens to have powers. It's so corny it goes back around to being cool again (which is part of why this movie has inspired so many people to say "kindness is the new punk rock"). I think that's great. Heaven knows we could use more kindness in this world. Especially in some of the areas on Earth suffering most right now. Speaking of which...

4. The Message Against Warmongering

The beginning fight happens in this movie because a fictional country called Boravia wants to invade another fiction country called Jarhanpur. Superman, who doesn't want people to die, rightfully stops Boravia from invading Jarhanpur. That ends up being a controversial move for him to make, however, especially considering Boravia is "an important US ally." Superman, though, defends his actions and continues to oppose Boravia's continued attempts to invade Jarhanpur.

Audiences have understood this message to be a criticism of Israel for their invasion of Gaza and a criticism of Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. James Gunn has disavowed the Israel/Palestine comparison, if not the Russia/Ukraine one, but that doesn't seem to matter too much. Maybe it shouldn't. Sometimes art reflects reality so precisely that it doesn't matter what its creators intended. Sometimes art can point things out that are so relevant to our moment in history that it can channel and comment on that moment even if an overt, direct connection wasn't intentional. 

The similarities to Israel/Palestine and Russia/Ukraine start out only in a general sense, but throughout the movie there are some oddly specific parallels that make it hard to believe there weren't at least a couple people involved with the movie who wanted to make a direct comparison. Again, though, we cannot know true intent. All I can say is that this movie unapologetically opposes wars of aggression. Even if watching this movie is not some sort of act of anti-war resistance, it is nice to see a major blockbuster directly, earnestly make that point. 

 

WHAT DIDN'T WORK FOR ME

1. Lack of Time Building Key Relationships

Earlier I said that I really liked the Lois/Clark relationship in this movie, but wish the key moments had been built toward better. That's where this entry comes in. As much as I liked that relationship, it just didn't feel like it was given the attention it deserved. Neither did a number of other important relationships in this movie.

Take Jonathan and Martha Kent, Clark's adopted parents. They are barely in this movie for two scenes. I won't talk about those scenes in detail. I will say this, though: like the Lois/Clark scenes, they're lovely. But they're just not built toward at all. For as perfectly executed as those scenes are, I just didn't feel much emotion in them. Because there is no groundwork laid by getting to know these characters, how they relate to one another, and what they have done for each other. In writing, you can't just have big, meaningful, cathartic scenes without setting them up. The first scene we get with the Kents is supposed to be a powerful one, but it's also basically the first time we meet them as characters.

A big problem is that this movie starts with Superman already facing down the main villains of the movie. You're basically thrown into the middle of the action. The advantage of this approach is that you start off on an exciting foot and can get to the action more quickly. What you lose, though, is setting up the world, its characters, and- once again- the relationships between them. It's not the most glamorous parts of most movies, but it is the setup that allows for bigger payoffs later. We just do not get enough of that in this movie. Hell, the Daily Planet staff (other than Jimmy Olsen) are basically just background characters.

I think the reason the movie doesn't take time to develop its world, characters, and relationships better is because, well... 

2. It Was Pretty Crowded!

This movie has a lot going on. As we already covered, it starts already after the conflict that defines this movie has popped off. By skipping all the setup, we start off with a bang. The movie still needs to set up it world and introduce its characters, though, even if they don't start at the "beginning" per se. And wow is there a lot in here! We have Superman, Lois, Krypto, three members of the Justice Gang, a couple additional heroes who get introduced throughout the film, the Daily Planet staff, the Kents, and a whole stable of villains. And those are just the central characters! It's a lot to balance. Frankly, it's too much.

Some people have said that this movie almost feels like watching the second or third entry in a Superman film series, rather than the first. I think there's a lot to that take. Because what they're getting at really combines this entry and the previous one: things aren't fully set up, yet a ton of things are introduced. I think if this were the sequel to a previous Superman movie that had fully brought in Superman, Lois, Krypto, the Daily Planet staff, the Kents, and maybe Lex Luthor, and defined their relationships and done the less flashy but necessary legwork to build our connection to them as an audience, then this movie could be one of the greatest superhero sequels of all time.

But it isn't. Instead, the first movie we get with this version of Superman is so crowded that no one character has full room to breath. Each character gets some great movies, and sometimes great scenes with other characters, but very few threads are woven throughout the whole thing because no character other than Superman can get the necessary attention to be fully fleshed out. This issue also pairs with...

3. The Lack of Emotional Gravity

 

A problem with a lot of Blockbusters over the past decade is that they don't have the dramatic weight they should have in order to make their more emotional moments hit harder. This movie doesn't fully have that problem (I've already made allusions to big, sincere moments that work really well), but it does have it to an extent. It's not helped by the previous two issues, either. The fact that the movie is so crowded it has trouble fully developing character relationships (and therefore, deeper emotional stakes for when those relationships are tested or those characters are put into danger) means sometimes things aren't felt as strongly as they should be.

A related problem to all of this is that when something serious and potentially impactful does happen, that thread is not woven into the fuller story beyond the next couple scenes. In writing, creating conflict is something that's supposed to build upon itself and have ripples throughout the story. Bad or important things that happen should accumulate throughout the story, and consequences should continue to mount. I don't just mean in terms of the action, like the consequences of a villainous action or mad science experiment gone wrong. But every character's inner conflict, every strain in a relationship between people, and especially every death should reverberate throughout the story. Again, this movie isn't totally absent any of that stuff, but it's much less fleshed out than it could. Often it's pushed to the wayside so that we can get more fun comic book moments, silly jokes, and big action set pieces.

The fun, airy, action-focused approach of this movie makes for an enjoyable time. Without better developed emotional stakes, though, it's almost designed to be surprisingly forgettable beyond the few standout moments. Again, I liked the movie. I think creating a story that is fun with a few genuinely memorable moments of sincerity and real emotional impact is a good thing! I loved a lot of what Superman did on screen! I just can't help but feel we could've gotten something more.

4. Lex Luthor is Too Interesting to be a Billionaire

This entry is, of course, not actually a problem I had with the movie at all. I just can't help but compare how compelling Lex Luthor is as a billionaire mega-villain compared to the more banal villainy and lamer personalities of our real life billionaire baddies. He's not nearly as dull as the off-putting Peter Thiel, the deeply unfunny Elon Musk, or the black hole of humanity Jeff Bezos. Where Lex Luthor is driven by an interesting blend of different motivations, resulting in some of the best villain monologues in years, these guys are driven by pretty mundane combinations of greed and egomania.

I'd rather we not be oppressed in real life by villainous billionaires. But as long as we are, couldn't they at least be a little more interesting? One can only wish.

Top Everything of 2024

Another year, another list of my favorite things from throughout the year. Like always, I've compiled a list of favorite things and people from this year for a variety of categories, as I'm interested in too many things to just write a yearly review about a single topic. What can I say, the world is an interesting place!

 

Movie: Uprising

The best historical epics are those that are as rooted in the relationships of their central characters as they are in the time and place they're set in. It's true for recent great historical epics from the last few years, like RRR and The Woman King, and it's true for Uprising.

This movie is set in Korea during the 1590s, when Korea was a kingdom (known as Joseon). During the decade Japan attempted to invade Joseon, which became known as the Imjin War. The story follows Cheon Yeong, an enslaved person who is an expert swordsman. He is best friends with Lee Jong-ryeo, the compassionate son of the Yeong's enslaver. Yeong is a free spirit who constantly tries to escape enslavement despite his affection for Lee. Luckily, because of his great swordsmanship, he escapes harsher punishment because of his value as a tutor for Lee.

The events of this movie put these friends onto a collision course. What's interesting about the larger political conflict here is that it's a three way one- the Korean elite are shown to care for Korean commoners little more than the Japanese do. In fact, the Korean elite sometimes even collaborate with the Japanese invaders. Certainly a biting metaphor for the aftermath of World War 2, when a lot of Korean elites who collaborated with the Japanese retained their power and influence thanks to the US occupiers.

This movie worked for me on multiple levels. The politics were intriguing, the action was exciting, the central friendship was sincere and really got me to care about the people involved beyond just the spectacle of everything happening. It was easily my favorite movie of the year until I saw I'm Still Here, but I still give this one the edge even though the latter is probably a "better" movie. Despite the fact Uprising is on Netflix and was written and produced by Park Chan-wook (of Oldboy, Lady Vengeance, and The Handmaiden fame), it's really slipped under the radar. I'm not sure why that is, but definitely check it out!

Comedy Movie: The Fall Guy

This was such a wonderful, fun movie. It stars Ryan Gosling as a stuntman and Emily Blunt as his ex-girlfriend who has become a movie director. It's a comedic rom-com with some action that is really just a celebration of movies and the people who work on it. I don't have too much more to say about it, because this movie isn't trying to do anything outside of the box. It's just a well-made crowd pleaser that does everything it aims to do in a really charming, enjoyable way. Like last year's pick (Polite Society), I'll fondly remember this one for a while.

Animated Movie: Look Back

Sometimes the process of artistic creation can be a lonely one. Not always, though- sometimes you find fellow creatives and things fall into place. Look Back is a celebration of the collaborative creative process, following a young manga artist named Ayumi Fujino. She draws manga for the school newspaper, but is eventually overshadowed by the mysterious Kyomoto. After an eventual chance encounter, the two become friends and collaborators.

I won't say more, as I think this is a movie better experienced with as little foreknowledge as possible. It's short, and almost ends in tragedy, but things go in an interesting direction after the tragedy that really reorients everything. It does all this not to create a super intricate plot, but to get us to feel the full weight of everything this movie is trying to make us feel. It succeeds beautifully, and manages to do so in just under an hour.

Actor: Aaron Pierre

Rebel Ridge was an exciting action movie that took on the corruption of police departments and the injustice of civil forfeiture policy, where police can arrest you, take your stuff, and not give it back (or have to jump through an exhausting series of hoops to be able to get it back) if they "suspect" it isn't actually yours. Starring in the film is Aaron Pierre, who simply has the it factor. He is cool, he is calm, he is collected, yet he is also a badass force of nature. At the same time, he also manages to inject a respectful humanity and depth to his character that makes him more than just an ass-kicking machine.

I'm not even sure what else to say here, other than this is the sort of performance that should make him an A-list star. Pierre deserves to start leading big, exciting blockbusters.

Actress: Fernanda Torres

I was all settled to give this spot to Maisy Stella in My Old Ass. She brings a refreshing liveliness to the movie that I love. She helps add a sincere yet fun charm to it, really elevating it beyond the script (with serious help from the always great Aubrey Plaza). But then I saw I'm Still Here.

The movie is about life in Brazil in the early 1970s under the dictatorship that ruled during that time. It's based on a true story. Fernanda Torres stars as Eunice Paiva, a mother of five and the wife of former Brazilian Congressman Rubens Paiva. Rubens had been a member of the Brazilian Labour Party until the rightwing military dictatorship came to power in 1964 and purged it. In the beginning of the movie we get a taste of both the love this family has for each other and the vibrant culture of Brazil, even in the midst of such a difficult time. Eventually, however, the military dictatorship ruins the family's peace by abducting Eunice, Rubens, and their second oldest daughter. I'll avoid saying much else so that anyone reading can go in fresh, but it's a powerful movie.

Torres's performance is the center of the movie. She is a mother trying to protect her family, a wife who loves her husband, and a woman of principle trying to do what is right in a system that is so wrong. She pulls everything off with flying colors. She balances toughness and vulnerability with impressive finesse, and the earlier, more lighthearted parts of the movie allow her to have fun before things get serious. Seeing that side of her really helps round out the character. This has to be one of my favorite performances of the decade so far.

 

Male MMA Fighter: Ilia Topuria

There were really only two choices for this spot: Alex Pereira or Ilia Topuria. And while I love Pereira for how entertaining his fights are and how cool his aura is, not to mention how often he stepped up to fight on short notice to save struggling UFC events, he's not exactly beating the best of the best. That's not his fault (the higher weight classes just don't have many good fighters), but in an otherwise close contest between two entertaining fighters, I gotta go with the one who beat higher quality competition.

Ilia Topuria beat two of the best pound for pound fighters on the entire planet in Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway. Not only that, but he beat perhaps the most well-rounded mixed martial artist ever in Volk (it's probably him or Demetrius "Mighty Mouse" Johnson), and perhaps the best MMA boxer ever in Holloway (there's a few on the shortlist for this honor, but Max is definitely one of 'em). That's a damn good year. Even if both fighters (but especially Volk) may be a little bit past their primes, beating fighters of that caliber while they're even decently close to their primes is beyond impressive.

Topuria is an interesting fighter. His background is as a grappler, having started martial arts as a kid with Greco-Roman wrestling and getting into Brazilian Jiu-jitsu as a teenager before moving to mixed martial arts. He has developed a dangerous and sophisticated boxing game, however. For many of his most recent fights that was what did the bulk of the work for him, though he did remind us how well-rounded he could be in his fight against Max Holloway (which you need to do to defeat an MMA-boxer of Max's caliber).

The fact Topuria is entertaining in addition to skilled makes him a joy to watch, like most featerweight champions. We'll see if Topuria can keep winning and build a legacy as champion like the other great previous champions of his division, including Volk and Holloway. I know I'll be watching with interest either way.

(NOTE: I usually also choose a female MMA fighter of the year, however this simply wasn't a great year for women's MMA in the UFC. I will, however, choose a female athlete from a different combat sport a few spaces down)

MMA Fight: Holloway vs Gaethje

This is one of those "what else can even be said about this?" sort of fights. Holloway and Gaethje went all out in one of the most entertaining brawls I've ever seen. On top of that, Holloway locked himself into fighter immortality through his point-and-brawl move toward the end that led to him knocking out Gaethje. While this fight wasn't quite as competitive as most of my picks for fight of the year in the past, it was just too fun to pass up.

Boxing Match: Katie Taylor vs Amanda Serrano

The Mike Tyson vs Jake Paul fight was a shit show. It was an embarrassment to the sport of boxing and an embarrassment to our collective intelligence. It was a spectacle of all show, no substance. Frankly, anyone who watched should be embarrassed...

...including me, because I watched it!

The main event was, of course, abysmal. The fights just before it, however, weren't. Especially not this fight. The two had already fought in 2022. They had an exciting, incredibly close fight that Kate Taylor won by split decision. This time, however... well, they yet again had an exciting, incredibly close fight that Taylor won by decision. These two are just made for each other. This fight was far and away one of the best fights of any combat sport I saw this year; it was almost enough to make Tyson vs Paul something of a real boxing card. If you enjoy fighting (especially boxing, but really any combat sports at all) and get the chance, this is an absolute must-watch.

Grappling Match: Kade Ruotolo vs Andrew Tackett

In grappling, there are generally two types of styles: "passers" who prefer to be on top of their opponent in grappling exchanges and "guard players" who prefer to play off of their back. I'm greatly oversimplifying, of course, but these are the two basic types at the most elementary level. Oftentimes in jiu-jitsu when you have two passers face each other it can turn into a boring, slow-paced wrestling match. Neither wants to be put on their back, but because both have good wrestling, they cancel each other out.

Kade Ruotolo and Andrew Tackett are both passing-based players, but their match earlier this year was anything but boring. The two gave it everything they have, constantly going for whatever moves they could without hesitation. The result is one of the greatest grappling matches of all time. You could show it to people who've never seen a grappling match to get them interested in the sport, you could show it to an advanced grappler to look out for high-level technical nuances. Best of all, it's free on YouTube!

Female Grappler: Ffion Davies

I love the martial art of jiu-jitsu. I've been practicing it for about a decade and currently hold the rank of purple belt. It's given me so much. But a dirty secret (that isn't really much of a secret if you're at all familiar with the sport) is that it is full of terrible people. Predators, scam artists, fascists, and straight up lunatics abound in the grappling world. Whenever an exciting new grappler emerges, you pretty much just take it for granted that they're probably not a good person.

But sometimes a good person hits the scene. And everyone once in a rare while, that good person makes it to the height of the sport. Ffion Davies is currently that person. An advocate for making jiu-jitsu more inclusive for women and for better athlete pay in general, she is also one of the best grapplers in the world. In 2024 she beat five high level women, four of them by submission. She even donated part of her purse for her highest profile match of 2024 at the Craig Jones Invitation to Gaza, which is pretty cool!

Scientific Discovery: Chimps Use Forests as Pharmacies

New research shows that chimpanzees may self-medicate when unwell, seeking out plants with anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory properties to ease what ails them. For example, in one study conducted, a chimp with a badly injured hand ate a type of fern tree that had anti-inflammatory properties. 

This discovery is not only interesting in and of itself, but might be able to help human beings. By knowing that chimpanzees engage in this behavior, scientists can follow chimps around in the forest and study the plants they eat. After all, in jungles around the world there are far too many plants for scientists to study all of them. By having the field narrowed down to what chimps normally it, it makes the selection process for which plants to study a lot more manageable.

 

Scientific Achievement: Lenacapavir

In many countries around the world, HIV remains a serious public health problem. Treatment has improved exponentially over the last couple decades, but its spread is still a serious problem. A new drug, however, has been found to protect patients for six months after taking it. That drug is lenacapavir, which has just about a 100% efficacy rate. It's a wonderful breakthrough that will sure help millions around the globe.

 

Photo: UnitedHealth CEO Assassination 

Was there a single person who makes less than $100,000 a year upset by this assassination?

Bullshit News Story: Haitian Immigrants Eating Pets

During the middle of the 2024 election campaign, the Republicans honed in on an obviously fake news story about Haitian immigrants eating pets. The "story" came from a couple calls from local racist cranks with zero evidence. Normally people would have the sense to brush that story off, but Republicans (particularly JD Vance) never pass up a chance to stoke racism against immigrants. What was shocking about this story, though, was how overtly racist it was. Most of the time, Republicans like to be suggestively racist, that way they have plausible deniability when confronted about it. This was just straight up George Wallace style racism, though.

When confronted about it, Vance more or less admitted he didn't care if the story was true or not. In his own words: "the American media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes. If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that's what I'm going to do." Because the point isn't to figure out the truth. The point is to stoke hatred in order to enact their otherwise unpopular, shitty agenda. 

Actual News Story: The Genocide in Palestine

As of writing this, a ceasefire has finally been reached in Gaza. It's nice that the killing has finally stopped, but the fact a genocide occurred over the last fourteen months (with full funding and arming from the Untied States) is an irrevocable stain on the world for letting it continue this long (with the United States repeatedly hampering all efforts by the United Nations to do anything to impose a halt to Israel's mass killing). All the rhetoric about the "rules based international order" and "human rights" that the United States, and the West more broadly, use was shown to be an empty shell.

Having kept up with news about the genocide for almost every day in 2024, I don't know what to even zoom in on here without writing an essay (or, hell, even a whole book- which I may do someday). From blowing up hospitals and schools to sabotaging peace talks to trying to cover up news of sexual assault against Palestinian detainees, Israel perpetrated countless atrocities. This is why even groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, as well as genocide scholars and even the United Nations itself, have ruled it a genocide. But none of that was enough to stop it from continuing.

The people of Palestine have suffered so much. Even in the West Bank, where Israeli settlers continued stealing land from native Palestinians despite no Hamas presence at all in the region. We can only hope the best for them (as well as make donations whenever we have anything to spare), but that will not bring back the dead, or give homes to the almost 40,000 orphaned children, or help rebuilt the utterly ruined infrastructure. And it won't keep them safe going forward, where they're still at the mercy of Israeli occupation.

Inadequate as words are, though, it's still worth saying: free Palestine.

Badass: Palestinian Doctors

Throughout the course of Israel's genocide in Gaza, it repeatedly targeted hospitals. It has completely devastated the Gazan medical system. Yet there are countless stories of Palestinian doctors refusing to leave their patients despite the risk they're taking. Doctors around the world take oaths to care for their patients and do so with impressive dedication, but those who do so during a genocide where they are being targeted shows a level of bravery that is an entirely different league. They shouldn't have to be this brave, they shouldn't have to choose between risking their lives against a murderous rampage or abandoning their patients, but they were put in that position. And they chose to save lives.

Video: Palestinian Children Thank Student Protesters

I share this video not to give special mention to the college students across the world who protested for Palestine (I think they're wonderful, but they're hardly the most important people here), but because it just shows how desperate these poor children were to have some sort of beacon of hope while facing an extermination. Look at these precious kids- some of whom were certainly killed since the recording of the video. Don't their hopes, their dreams, their fears count too? Look at how earnest they are. How they smile in the midst of such devastation. The world failed to keep them safe. It continues to fail to keep them safe. That needs to change.