Friday Food for Thought: October 7, 2022

Hello Friends, welcome to Friday Food for Thought. Every Friday I’ll help start your weekend by sharing four people, thoughts, or things that are on my mind this week. These may be books or movies, podcast suggestions, interesting people I follow on social media, music, products, or, well, anything. You may find interesting creativity boosts here, some conversation starters, or just a small dose of entertainment. I was unable to post last week due to Hurricane Ian, but click here for my previous post. Feel free to share this with friends, or offer suggestions via the comments. Let’s begin!

1) A Winn-ing Performance:

Star Trek fans rightfully recall Khan as one of the franchise’s great villains, brilliantly performed by Ricardo Montalban in an episode of The Original Series and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982). However, we might find an even more insidious villain in Louise Fletcher’s chilling work as Kai Winn over seven seasons of Deep Space Nine. While Khan made his intentions clear, Kai Winn approached with a gentle smile, a spiritual text in one hand and a knife in the other. It’s hard to imagine anyone besides Fletcher pulling this off. She brought a similar stealth to her iconic role as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975). (Fletcher based Nurse Ratched partly on her observation of racists she had observed in her home state of Alabama.) By all accounts, Fletcher, like Montalban, was a class act in person, and perhaps it’s the true of heart who are best suited to play great villains, because they’re most qualified to understand the consequences.

2) Nobility in the Endeavour:

I’ve not yet seen the ITV series Inspector Morse, but my wife and I are in the midst of watching the prequel series Endeavour. I’m not generally a big fan of mysteries but I’m hooked on Endeavour for a number of reasons. The cast, writing, and production values are all first-rate. Each season consists of three to four movie-length episodes, and while each episode contains a stand-alone story, watching the character development over the course of the series is a real treat. Shaun Evans and Roger Allam are outstanding as the two leads, Endeavour Morse and Fred Thursday, but the supporting characters are well-acted and thoughtfully written. Each episode, fish-out-of-water Morse, mentored by Detective Inspector Thursday, navigates the staid traditions of Oxford as they are challenged by cultural transformations of the 1960s. The endings aren’t always happy, but Morse’s sincere aspirations to noble conduct are an inspiration. With frustrating exceptions, much of the series is currently streaming on Prime, but the entire series (except for the 9th and final season currently in production) is available on DVD .

3) Get Your Sheets Together:

In an effort to reduce our plastic use, my wife and I have switched from liquid laundry detergent to detergent sheets. No more clunky plastic containers, as these detergent sheets come packaged in recyclable (or compostable) cardboard. While the price is a bit higher than conventional detergent, we’d rather pay for convenience now than pay for environmental destruction later. We use Eco Roots detergent but there are plenty of other brands out there. We’re still early in the experiment, but so far we’re happy with both the performance and the packaging.

4) Deep Thoughts – Don’t Rebuild, Rethink:

Parts of Florida suffered terrible devastation from Hurricane Ian. Amid the finger-pointing over evacuation orders, there will be many dramatic statements about rebuilding. Hurricanes are not an act of war; this kind of rebuilding is not an act of defiance against a foreign invader. I would argue that some of those areas should never have been developed in the first place. Nature created barrier islands for a reason, and the total sum of human knowledge can’t equal nature’s wisdom. Perhaps this is the time to suck it up and acknowledge the error of our ways. Reimbursing home and business owners adequately so they can relocate and return some of those areas to nature seems like a good idea, but it is one that almost no one will seriously consider.

That’s all for this week. Have a good weekend!

This post contains NO affiliate links. All suggestions are based on my own personal experience, your experience may vary. Nothing herein is intended to serve as medical, legal, financial, or any other advice for which you should consult professionals and not some random guy on the Internet.