Red Carpet and MeToo

Red Carpet and MeToo

It’s that time of year again. Seems like every week there’s a televised awards show, and with each one, an additional preshow for red carpet fashion coverage. On some networks (E!), the red carpet coverage is longer than the actual telecast. Then, the following day, as if all the preshow coverage wasn’t enough, many networks, local and national, troll out more panels to discuss who wore who and how it looked. Is all of this necessary? And in the era of #MeToo, why is it still okay to comment on how celebrities, mostly women, look?

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Bothsidesism

Bothsidesism

Part of me wants to turn off all television news and live a happily ignorant existence. Another part of me needs to scream. At Chris Matthews. At Chris Cuomo. At Chris Hayes. It’s not the name Chris that bothers me. My confirmation name is Chris. No, it’s how the Chrises and others in the television news business are once again doing their best to sway and blow another election for Democrats.

After the terrorist murders in Pittsburgh, almost every news show had on good ol’ folksy John Kasich. He’s been making the rounds. What he says in all of these appearances is appealing: we need to have more empathy, stop putting up walls, reach out to others, and Trump is incapable of being a unifier. All of it sounds good. Common sense. But just as he criticizes Trump in one breath, he then invokes bothsidesism in another.

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The Rhetoric Blame Game

The Rhetoric Blame Game

False equivalency strikes again.

Yesterday pipe bombs were sent to political opponents and vocal critics of Donald Trump. Specifically, the targets of the bombs were people he has called out by name at his cult shows.

Today the media has bent over backwards to show how both sides need to cool down on the rhetoric. For example, CBS This Morning showed several clips in an attempt at being “fair.” One clip was an interview with a Trump supporter—it looked like she was in the lobby of his rally last night—who said both sides need to take a step back. This was followed by another clip of past Trump cult shows (aka rallies) where he whipped up the flock into frenzied chants of “lock her up.”  Then, to be “fair,” CBS showed a clip of Eric Holder saying, “when they go low, we kick them.”

How are these things even remotely equivalent?

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Freedom and Fake News

Freedom and Fake News

Anyone who knows me or reads this blog knows I’m not a big fan of the television news media. And by news, I mean legit news organizations, not the sly-as-a-fox-make-shit-up-to-brainwash-our-viewers-in-order-to-serve-our-oligarchic-agenda “news.”

CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, BBC, etc., are all legit news. I may not like the way they present the news, um, I mean BREAK the news, since it’s always BREAKING NEWS with fancy graphics, ominous scoring, and dramatic language—for Pete’s sake, I’m watching the news, not a James Cameron movie—but they are legitimate.

I wish they’d stop trying to entertain me and just give me the facts.

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Tone Deaf

Tone Deaf

Guns suck. People suck worse.

There something mentally unstable with people who worship guns. But okay, I suppose everyone’s got a fetish. If guns are your thing, have it at. But don’t act surprised when someone uses your fetish to murder innocent people.

To be clear: the madman who took aim at Republicans on a baseball field was pure evil. Plain and simple. And if he hadn’t been killed, he deserved to die. (I’m not a knee-jerk bleeding heart against the death penalty. That said, any potential death penalty case should be clear cut with irrefutable, iron-clad evidence, such as with this madman in Alexandria. Innocent people have been put to death. See, contrary to radical right-wing popular belief, liberals are not monolithic. Link provided so you can look it up.)

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100% Pure Projection

100% Pure Projection

Trump is nothing but 100% pure projection.

When a person projects, they tend to fervently accuse others of traits, flaws, and issues that are really about themselves. It is blame shifting. Trump and his propaganda machine (including feckless Republicans) have mastered this primitive defense mechanism and elevated it to a sickening art form.

Some examples:

Hillary is crooked = I am crooked.
She is corrupt = I am corrupt.
The Clintons are criminals = I am a criminal.
Rosie is a pig = I am a pig.
The election is rigged = I am rigging it.
Obama is sick = I am sick.
The media is the enemy of the people = I am the enemy the people.
Anything he labels or calls a disaster = I am a disaster.

Almost every time he opens his mouth to criticize someone else, he is actually talking about himself.

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Is this the kind of disruption people voted for? Sure, some did. (During the campaign, Hillary referred to those folks as a basket of deplorables, and that was being kind.) Others voted for Trump because they were in pain or they felt like they had no voice or they just wanted to shake up the system. While I didn’t vote for Trump, I, too, thought Washington needed a big time jolt. But not like this. If you are still defending this president and his autocratic goons, then you are delusional. You are the problem. Please, take your head out of Sean Hannity’s propaganda-filled ass and get some real facts and fresh air.

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Just the Facts

Just the Facts

Dear media,

Where were you in 2015 and 2016 have you been the last 30+ years?

Congratulations! You successfully enabled a man who now declares war on you.

And you deserve it.

You have no one but yourselves to blame for your eroded credibility. For far too long, you have chased sensationalism, the ratings dollar, and portrayed the news as entertainment. So you get what you deserve. It’s tempting to jump on the Trump administration’s media-bashing bandwagon, but we need you now more than ever. You are the only check left on a complete fascist and Orwellian takeover of America and democracy. Your rights—unlike women, LGBT, black, immigrant, voting, and many other rights—are enshrined in, and protected by, the Constitution, because, have no doubt, the current administration would strip you of those rights in a rushin’ Russian heartbeat. This is what they plan to do to me, my husband, son, sister, mother, and fellow marginalized brothers and sisters. So count yourselves lucky.

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twopointnine don’t count

twopointnine don’t count

When a candidate receives 2.9 million more votes and still ends up losing, something is seriously wrong with our election system. That’s 2.9 million voters who don’t matter. Their votes, representing more than the total population of eighteen individual states (based on 2010 census), and is more than the total vote in thirty-four states, may as well have been incinerated. We could void votes for Trump in eight states combined (Alaska, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, West Virginia, and Nebraska) or in Ohio alone and still not reach 2.9 million. Imagine the outrage if his votes in any one of those states simply didn’t count.

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Bankrupt

Bankrupt

I wrote this monologue in reaction to the economic crash in late 2008/early 2009. It seems appropriate to post again now.

I am at a dead end. Stumbling through chapter 10, heading like a missile into chapter 11. I am creatively bankrupt. I am intellectually bankrupt. I have not had an original thought, idea, or action in years. I’m not sure such a thing exists today. Originality is dead. Imagine a world where all the ground has already been broken and you are here. We, are here together. It’s all been done before. Everything is a cover. And since I do not understand what it means to “make it your own” I will never have a refreshing cover or remake.

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