My favorite thing about going to Kaohsiung Pride this year was watching a rep from the US embassy (which isn't allowed to be called an embassy because China) show up to give a 30 second speech reaffirming American solidarity with Taiwan, its democracy and the LGBTQ community, or something. To be honest, i didn't quite follow because he started out
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Books like "The Spy Who Came In From the Cold" or "The Tailor of Panama" are SO GOOD and really focus on how in the intelligence/counter-intelligence world... it's ALL morally gray, and what happens when all these people are BEING morally gray... how it really fucks shit up for no damned good reason, mostly because when it all comes down to it... everyone is just doing whatever they do... for *themselves*. The nationalism, the patriotism, the defensive/offensive postures are all just... a cover for humans doing whatever humans want to do.
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Yes. Yes. and YES!
It's also WAY more disastrous AND interesting to see how humans tend to exploit each other in so many many many ways, and how READY so many people are... to exploit each other, despite the INCREDIBLE possible fallout. Like murder is both a spectacle and permanent where words and so many actions are transitory and unremarkable... but, how many people die *because* of some kind of betrayal in the first place? Not just murders, but like... even driving crazy or making other dangerous decisions because you're emotionally shocked/raw by someone else's shitty words/actions?
Our emotional/social worlds are (each!) AT LEAST as brutal and visceral as our literal brutal and viscera-filled physical existence, specifically because humans are so interested/invested in ourselves/each others emotional/social worlds and often treat it as MORE real and important than the real blood-and-guts reality, and yet.... it's easier to show/tell/explain the physical world and ITS brutality as if it's the only *real kind* that *really matters ( ... )
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Now that I've watched the first 4 episodes of the American remake, I can confirm that it's almost a scene-for-scene remake, just with the countries flipped. Instead of Algeria, we have Belarus, and instead of Syria we have Sudan.
Some of the country flipping is a bit awkward - for example, one minor plot point in the French version was that an agent did not want to drink alcohol because he was Muslim, but in the American version it's because he's a former addict. This makes sense in theory, but because the lines are a direct translation from French the emphasis is placed on his not drinking not being a problem due to the culture of the place he is posted to, which feels unrealistic because alcohol use is far more widespread in Belarus than Algeria.
I feel like there is also way more violence. There were some torture scenes in the French version, but I don't remember any excessive gun violence, which is definitely there in the American version. I am sure there is plenty of gun violence in real-world Ukraine since there is a literal war ( ... )
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We've been loving "The Diplomat," which is full of great actors and terrific writing. We blew through the second season irritatingly quickly, and we want more.
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I've been watching The Agency and it's not bad. It's hard for me not to compare it to the French version because a lot of it is a scene-for-scene remake, so I keep thinking how the French version did it better, but going in blind I think it would be fine. Definitely check out the French version too, though, if you like the American one!
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