Steve Carell is the main character in a cute 2013 comedy movie, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone. It generally takes place in Las Vegas where Burt attempts to reunite with his lifelong friend, portrayed by Steve Buscemi, who portrays Anton Marvelton.
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| Burt and Anton |
Beginning with a magic kit – a present from his mother when he was a young child – Burt draws the attention of Anton who develop a friendship in the stage magic entertainment industry.
After arising to fame, the act begins to stale, eventually leading to tiff between the two, and ending up in a separation. A variety of famous cast members enliven this film through to the finale.
In an effort to rejuvenate the act, they reunify for an attempt to pull off the ultimate magic trick. I’m not going to give the ending away, but in simple terms it winds up being monumental and very, very creative.
My sainted wife thought this movie was too outlandish on which to waste a second of time – though she did. But it was the creativity of the book, turned into a script, that actually made this flick memorable for me.
Although not ranking up there with Casablanca or Key West as award winning movies, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone was entertaining for me. This film is where I mentally went to when I began reassessing what America, along with the entire world, have been subject to since roughly the turn of the century.
It was 1999, and the relatively new world of computers was facing its first real test of how it was designed to function versus how it might actually function, or not.
Then-being used in businesses, to assist with transactions, track inventory and re-order, ship goods, and manage payrolls, computers had moved from a novel idea to a critical component of life. Lest we forget those payrolls are forwarded to banks for processing, and redistribution of monies to pay bills had also become routine.
Mortgages, gas and electric bills, utilities, credit card transactions, travel, and medications, insurance vehicle registration, police identity checks, as well as the then-new Global Positioning System (GPS), all heavily relied on computers to function, and function well.
During the advent period of computer use in societal commerce, those old enough may recall the days of the payroll deposit not making its way to the bank. Glitches were more common than current day crime, but the excuse was reliably the same: “The computer system has a ‘bug’ that is being worked out.”
And we all played along just the way we were supposed to in a fluid, polite, cohesive society. Until late-1999, that is.
News people were agog because of rumors the computer system just might crash. I’ll wait for you while you re-read that last sentence, again.
It seems that computer programmers, who were instrumental in getting all the aforementioned technological wonders functioning for years were now suspect in what the media was promoting as a possible reversal to the Stone Age.
Although old enough to have lived then, I don’t recall a lot of woes that might threaten a total collapse of transportation, medical, and food chain supplies because of a programming error. And the error?
In order to save time and storage space, computer programmers occasionally wrote coding dates as follows: MMDDYY – representing M for Month, D for Day, and Y for Year. Unfortunately, some foreign nations wrote the date YYDDMM, while others used variations thereof, causing concern for incompatibility. No “expert” was able to offer a solid guess or solution for this impending issue.
You see, with a two-digit year, “23” for example, it might be 1923, it could be 2023, it was possibly 1823. And therein lain the problem.
Suddenly, business-as-usual was on the verge of being a total collapse of financial transactions and institutions, medical systems and procedures, even everyday communications, all at the stroke of midnight, January 1, 2000.
The press aided and abetted in panicking the public into a disaster mode – issuing warnings about societal mayhem. Storage of food, precious metals, guns, ammunition, medical supplies, gasoline, even cigarettes and alcohol acquisition were encouraged.
January 2nd, 2000, and everything was business-as-usual, again. People who warned friends and neighbors about the impending doom were suddenly silent, as were all those supply hoarders and newscasters who fostered this giant international scare.
But this panic was not without reward. The powers-that-be inside the Democrat Party were quick to realize that Americans were a cohesive bunch who could be fed information about virtually anything – true or not – only to grasp onto the cause du jour in order to retain a sense of belonging.
If you don’t believe me, witness the American terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. The 9-11 attacks quickly reunited a fracturing nation who was less than pleased because of a slanted media who was bound and determined to vilify then-President George W. Bush.
Leading a campaign that attempted to make President Bush appear weak and incompetent, the Democrats were anxious to re-implement the tactics used in the Great Computer Mayhem Almost-disaster of 1999. And it worked.
Driving a wedge between the races and sexes, the country was more than divided leading up to the 2008 elections. Women banded together to, once again in history, attempt to disenfranchise men all under the guise of “identity politics.” Going a step further, something called “tribalism politics” was introduced to guarantee the division was perpetual.
Tribalism politics is the psychological manipulation of making people think in terms of ‘us vs. them.’ For instance, if a group is supporting Palestine, a group-centric standard should be applied to exclude those who are not, and therefore assumed to be pro-Israel.
The same standard now holds true with whites and blacks, men and women, pro-life and pro-death of babies, even groups who claim to be for or allegedly against preserving the environment, all in an effort to divide. And it’s working.
You may have heard of something called COVID-19. Using tribalism politics, the United Nations, in concert with the United States’ medical scientists and doctors, drove a narrative that created a chasm across the entire planet.
Exploiting arbitrary prophylactic attempts to control/manage the COVID virus, normal people were instructed to stand six-feet apart in stores, wash hands for 20-seconds, wear specially-prescribed masks, and remain indoors, all to avoid spread of COVID. Vaccines were also developed and mandated for everyone, everywhere.
Most people gleefully followed the public health orders, but some did not; those who did not were chastised, harangued, arrested, even fired from their jobs. Some military and police members were let go, and we are now ruing the public health orders that forced them out of service.
But it is today that we find ourselves back under the control of the media. It seems as though President Joseph Robinette Biden has been serving a questionable term derived from a questionable election. With time racing toward the 2024 elections, the public has just recently discovered that Biden is not the Biden for whom they voted in 2020.
Repeated falls, verbal gaffs, awkward nonsensical speeches, and bouts of anger all point to problematic issues now surfacing with only a few short weeks away from our next presidential pick. Tribalism is running rampant, creating an abyss unlike any seen in our sovereign nation’s history.
Using allegations of altered information from Artificial Intelligence, lies, claims of utilizing false pictures, rampant racism, and sexism, all compounded by an invasion of people crossing both our Southern and Northern borders, has generated only mistrust from Americans tired of being falsely fed more of the same razzle dazzle to achieve the desired results.
The Commander-in-Chief has been using front people to lie to the American people. Manipulating rules surrounding the Democrat Party Convention process, Joe Biden dropped out of the race after announcing a full-steam-ahead re-enlistment for the upcoming election.
Less than two-weeks later, a new candidate – VP Kamala Harris – is being touted as a cross between Joan of Arc and Margaret Thatcher. All that manufactured tripe is from the same press that gave you COVID, 9-11, and Donald Trump misinformation, and is happily attempting to give you more fake history.
Burt Wonderstone and Anton Marvelton worked hard to make their magic show, well, magical. And the Democrats are working just as feverishly to make you believe – in awe – that they can pull the proverbial wool over your eyes, yet again.
It’s time to think for yourself and stop following the herd when voting.
