The Future, as it must, has defeated The Past.

Obama winning is important. His presidency being both historic AND successful is important to the narrative of history. But, more immediately, American voters have – whether by intent or incident – protected the Supreme Court from anti-choice, anti-science nominees for another four years and maybe longer… NOTHING was more important than that.

However, other things of profound importance were either decided or are in the process of being decided tonight. Among them:

Puerto Rico has voted, for the first time, “YES” on a non-binding referendum stating that they wish to become the 51st full member-state of The United States of America. Both Obama and Romney were on record as saying that they support and would sign off on the change, but if this really does get to the U.S. Congress expect a massive fight from Republicans – the zealously anti-Hispanic Tea Party wing of the GOP will not support a predominantly-Latino Spanish-speaking territory becoming an American State. In a very real way, this could be the biggest thing that happened tonight.

Marijuana has been legalized or semi-legalized in at least three more states than before by solid margins. This is the beginning of the end for Marijuana prohibition.

When the next session begins, more Women will sit in the U.S. Senate than ever before.

One of those aforementioned women, Tammy Baldwin (Democrat, Wisconsin) is also the first openly-gay woman to be elected in U.S. Senate history.

Four states had gay marriage legalization ballot initiatives on their ballots. Previously, such initiatives have either lost or won AGAINST marriage-equality 30 times with no victories. Tonight, all four were affirmed. The tide is changing.

Here in Massachusetts, archetypal preening alpha-male bully Scott Brown was trounced by Progressive firebrand Elizabeth Warren – kiss my actual working-class Boston guy ASS, Scotty.

The down side to all of this is that there will be no “wakeup call” to the Republican Party. The spin tomorrow morning will be that Romney lost because he was too moderate, not a “real” Christian and not a “real” conservative; and the push will be on to run a true believer next time. They will only become more intractable, more fundamentalist and more committed.

But, still, little by little we are improving. With each battle won over the forces of “tradition,” anachronism and superstition; persons of open-mind get one step closer to building the Superior America that we both need and – to be frank – deserve for the 21st Century.

This week’s show is about the “Cloud Atlas” casting controversy.

If you’re of age and in the U.S., please go vote today.

Did you have a good Halloween? I had a good Halloween. Go see “Wreck-It Ralph.”

Also! I interviewed The RZA. That was surreal.

So, since it’s Halloween… lets talk about this red band trailer for “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters,”  which looks about as agood as these “stupid on purpose” genre riffs get. Specifically… is it at all “weird” that I find this in somewhat bad taste?

What I mean is… I totally “get” that they’re just riffing on the familiar fairytale (LOVE the gag with the milk bottles) and that 0.00000% of this is meant to be taken seriously, but… they MUST be aware that “Witch” isn’t strictly a fictional, made-up thing like vampires or zombies or whatnot, right? That there’s an actual, recognized religion (several of them, in fact) in the 21st Century world that calls it’s practice “Witchcraft” and it’s adherents “Witches,” right? I mean, this cannot be NEWS to anyone making a big-budget American fantasy/horror movie, yes?

I know it’s kind of a weird area, since Wicca etc. names itself AFTER the historical/mythic version of Witches/Witchcraft and not the other way around, but still… the whole jokey “the only good witch is a dead witch” thing kinda rubs me the wrong way. Maybe I’m oversensitive to this, having known and been friends with more than a few real Witches in my time, but it seems kind of weird to not be qualifying them as “evil witches” here, fairytale or not.

I dunno, maybe I’m nuts… but this feels, to me, just a little bit like having “The Wandering Jew” show up as a monster in something and saying it’s okay because it was an actual 13th Century legend. I don’t know that it’s a huge deal (any Wiccans and/or Witchcraft-identifying neo-pagans want to chime in?) but it feels odd in the 21st Century – regardless of context, can you see someone making a movie called “Christian Hunter” or “Muslim Hunter?”

And then everything changed.

On the other hand… Disney has been bringing some incredible talent and material under their umbrella lately. People forget this, but the whole reason they bought Marvel was because their attempts to build in-house “boy brands” (their words, not mine) were coming up short and they figured it was easier/cheaper to just BUY a whole bunch. Now they’ve bought another bunch: Mickey Mouse is now in the business of making movies about The Incredible Hulk and Darth Vader – the future of YOUR popular culture is MY toybox circa 1985.

While I’ll always respect Lucas’ go-it-alone zeal in claiming/owning his creations (and I can’t not worry that there might be something “gone wrong” on his end that’s driving this)… the fact is, he just hasn’t been the best steward of them for a long time. If his final act as owner of “Star Wars” is to leave it, effectively, in John Lasseter et al’s hands? I’m more than okay with that. Especially since this means it’s now in the hands of people with no Earthly reason to NOT release the uncut original trilogy.

Okay. I’m onboard. Let’s see where this is going.

Schlocktober 2012 comes to a close.

You asked for it, you got it. Thoughts and prayers to my fellow hurricane-weatherers.

Brentalfloss and Pat The NES Punk, raising the fucking bar:

See it. Love it or hate it, it’s going to be one of the most important movies of the year.

Intermission: “Let’s Watch ‘The Iron Man 3’ Trailer”

BREAKING: Arnold Schwarzenegger will play “Conan The Barbarian” one more time.

Honestly? If he can get into the best possible shape and they play it as “old Conan” either way, this makes a lot more sense than another “Terminator.” I just hope they don’t make the mistake of assuming that forgoing a PG-13 was what “went wrong” with last year’s awful attempt at a reboot…