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?

6+
Continue Reading

Sensible Gun Control

Sensible Gun Control

The quickest way to get meaningful gun control would be to allow anyone to open-carry guns anywhere—airports, schools, churches, and especially in all government buildings and offices. If guns were allowed in the Capitol, White House, and Supreme Court, we’d have reasonable gun control tomorrow.

4+
Continue Reading

Unfixable Crimes

Unfixable Crimes

Dear media, you are being used. You are playing right into the hands of a dangerous madman. You are disseminating propaganda and terror by giving too much oxygen to a lying fascist and white supremacist. For the sake of your own credibility and a fragile democracy, please stop playing video clips of the president. You can report on what he says and does without incessantly showing clips of him lying. It doesn’t matter if you tell us before and/or after showing the clips that it’s a lie—the clip is more powerful. And he knows it. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video clip is worth a million.

He is using you to spread hate and distract. Stop playing along.

Here’s a more important scoop for you: more Americans just voted for Democrats (57%) than Republicans (42%) in Senate races, yet the Republicans picked up seats and will control the body (especially women’s bodies). A majority of Americans support progressive ideas and beliefs, but because the system is rigged they will be ruled by a radical and oppressive minority. Our constitutional crisis is the constitution itself. It’s the undemocratic Senate and antiquated Electoral College. As Lawrence O’Donnell recently said, “the Senate is an unfixable crime against democracy.”

5+
Continue Reading

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.

14+
Continue Reading

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?

5+
Continue Reading

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.

3+
Continue Reading

Blow Out the Candles

Blow Out the Candles

Before the phone rings and my parents cackle-sing “Happy Birthday” into my ear then ask me what kind of cake or pastry I want for my birthday dessert, I wish to address our dear leader and make some birthday wishes of my own.

Dear leader,

It is an honor and privilege to turn another year older under your noble reign. May you transfer so much wealth from the poor to the rich that Putin needs to build more Russian banks to hold all the money. May the sick without healthcare not die on the sidewalks in front of your towers. May Mar-a-Lago always rise above sea level. May you detain and deport many Mexican rapists. May facts remain as elusive as your tax returns. May you find the 3 million people who voted illegally. May your faithful followers, especially the Sean Calamity Shamity asslickers, forever defend your cons, lies, vulgarity, indecency, bullying, and cruelty while whining about how victimized they are by liberals. May they always believe fake news and never wake up to the truth. May your every tee shot be a hole-in-one.

And most of all, when your time comes, may God show you more mercy and grace than you did for his children.

The phone’s ringing.

So, dear leader, as you blow out the candles on the planet, let us eat cannoli cake.

2+
Continue Reading

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.)

2+
Continue Reading

We Are Not Enemies

We Are Not Enemies

Dear conservative friends and family,

I am not your enemy. And you are not my enemy. But you’d never know that from the information you receive. I have tuned into Fox. I have read Breitbart. The overwhelming message they send is that I, your friend and loved one, should be despised, ridiculed, and, yes, some even say eradicated.

Think about that.

No, really, think about it.

Turn off the TV or radio and get quiet with that thought.

Is your happiness really dependent upon my demise?

5+
Continue Reading

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.

4+
Continue Reading