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Adrift and emasculated, Stan is less a patriarch than the defeated captain of a sinking ship, drowning in his futility.

The clash of perspective enlivens the drama by clarifying the thematic questioning holding “Cordially” together — how can human beings process the scale of destruction around them without succumbing to feelings of futility.

“No Other Land’s” sense of grim futility is very much the point — it’s what the strong count on in order to suppress those who oppose them.

Cowboy Carter is a masterpiece that weaves hundreds of musical threads into a thesis about America's cultural past, and the futility of gatekeeping musical genres along racial lines.

Like other Americans and members of society, they too are tired, sleep-deprived and exhausted, ground down and feeling the temptations of futility and of succumbing to learned helplessness in the face of Trump’s reign.