2,000 Light Years From Home

Except for the lack of flying cars, it seems as if I've been living in a science fiction novel from time immemorial. In reality, it's only been about twenty years since the dawn of the digital age. Right about the turn of the century when the Internet went mainstream. The new showstopper is brought to you by CLEAR, a biometric screening company. Simply stated, you go to a CLEAR kiosk at participating airports or sports stadiums, scan your iris or fingerprint, and you're good to go without the hassles of long check-in lines by the TSA or security guards. The fast track. No tickets. No boarding passes. There's a registration process beforehand, and you have to relinquish a lot of personal information, but after the vetting, it's convenient and a time saver. Great for frequent flyers.

It's the type of technology only a Martian could engineer. Good old American ingenuity. CLEAR recently introduced an age verification and biometric payments service. Although the New York based company considers itself a Secure Identity Platform, this could be a big deal if the technology holds up, they don't experience a data breach and consumers are comfortable enough with the service to enable mass deployment and adaptation. CLEAR calls itself the ATM of identity. They've been around since 2003, but went under six years later. In 2010 they were back in business with fresh funding. Perhaps their time is now. I'd prefer to give these corporations as little amount of information about myself as possible, but that ship has sailed. In order to function in the modern world, your private life is now your public persona. In the Vietnam War era we had mission creep, now it's mission creepy.

Roughly 130 years ago, we went through another era of rapid technological advancement with the introduction of electricity to the masses. Hardwired human behavior, such as waking at dawn and going to bed at sunset were the norms of the old school. Then the national deployment of the incandescent light bulb changed everything. Inner cities became illuminated in a five year span. The Current War: Director's Cut, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Thomas Edison, Nicholas Hoult as Nikola Tesla, and Michael Shannon as George Westinghouse, documents the race to electrify and illuminate the United States from 1880-1893. Solid performances by the principal players abound.

Inspired by true events, it's received lukewarm reviews from the critics, and just so so applause from audience feedback, especially millennials because of Tesla's minor role. He's reached cult status in some circles. Ask anyone that works for Elon Musk. Although the story has faults, I liked it. It's not a blockbuster and the screenwriter utilized his literary licence by downplaying Tesla, but I learned something and was entertained. My big knock on the film was that the editing was a bit too fast for me. The story moved quickly to a fault. The Current War runs 145 minutes, and if they would have spent an additional ten minutes beefing up some scenes, it would have been a better product. Originally slated to be released in 2017 to much fanfare, it was delayed because it was produced by Harvey Weinstein who needs no introduction.

"It's a dirty story of a dirty man, and his clinging wife doesn't understand."

I'm not going to go into Weinstein's background, he's all over the news, but despite his fall from grace, he knows how to make a movie. That said, the casting couch didn't work out too well for him, and he may do hard time for sexual assaults. To the best of my knowledge, Weinstein is no longer associated with the movie. It's not my job to be judge, jury and executioner, so I am going to let the courts make their decisions. However, the former founder of The Weinstein Company went bankrupt, morally and maybe otherwise. That I understand. What I can't fathom is why financier Ken Fisher is being crucified in the court of public opinion for a sexually charged statement he made. Granted, he uttered a crude and sexist joke about the sales process, but he didn't do anything morally reprehensible. Let me be more clear.

During a public presentation, Fisher made a stupid statement that a sales pitch is akin to "getting in a girls pants". Or something to that effect. I just don't know because I have examined a triad of credible media sources: CNBC, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. All three can't get their stories straight about what Mr. Fisher actually said when he made the guffaw. Perhaps it depends on where Fisher Investments spends their advertising dollars. I do my best to parse out 'Fake News'. It would deeply trouble me if the most trusted content sources turned into scandal sheets.

The Gray Lady came down hard on Mr. Fisher. I expect more from The New York Times, especially when they appear to have taken the entire episode out of context. Sure, at 67 years old Fisher should have known better, but a simple retraction and apology would suffice. Not losing billions of dollars in assets under management for Fisher Investments. That's not chump change. I can appreciate political correctness, and most of the time it's a good thing, but sometimes it goes too far. We've come a long way as a country, both socially and technologically. Computational rigor enables companies such as CLEAR to pave the way for economic dominance for years to come. Nevertheless, we're taking steps backwards when the politically correct extremists limit our constitutional right of free speech. This weekend, Mr. Fisher made a public apology in writing that's posted on the Internet. Let's see how the "Woke" crowd reacts next week.

Didn't Frank and Nancy Sinatra sing "Something Stupid"?