Fresh New F*ckery Incoming

 

President Trump on JFK Files: "We are tomorrow announcing and giving all of the Kennedy files...I don't believe we are are going to redact anything...it's going to be very interesting...approximately 80,000 pages." pic.twitter.com/0NW4QdLSzL

— CSPAN (@cspan) March 17, 2025

Remember when the White House traipsed some little right-wing influencers off with their photo op and their binders of nothing-burger Epstein files? 

Well, I think this is kind of like that, except it smells to me that they are doing this on the same day that Trump is going to be in contact with his buddy Putin and has been talking about pre-surrendering Crimea and continuing to lie about Ukrainian forces surrounded and so on. They have a good idea which showcase the goofballs in our media are going to pay attention to on this cursed game show.

 It feels like a distraction that will be as enlightening as a flashlight with a dead battery. I mean, we will see....

And the Trees Didn't Even Do Anything Wrong (UPDATED)

 

Quick shoutout to the good people at @UniversalPics for trimming the trees that gave our picket line shade right before a 90+ degree week. pic.twitter.com/aZvvPYQ23i

— Chris Stephens (@ChrisStephensMD) July 17, 2023

So here's an image that got me hotter than July sun on blacktop: these studio sonsofbitches pruned the trees. Were they even their trees to prune? (Maybe not, it looks like they might have been the city's trees.) And is this even the time of year you would normally do that? (Yeah, I dunno about that, you guys.) 

Now, leave out the whole level of mental motherfuckery you would need to possess to even decide "I know what, let's just take a little bit of natural coolness away from the picketers as if that's going to make them not want to resolve this strike in a way that lets them afford to live in the town they work" or anywhere else and shit like that, but also says "and if the trees die, they die." 

Now I'm not arborist, I'm not, I know it. I had fig trees, and they weren't meant for my area of the northeast. They got wrapped but still didn't survive a deep freeze. My grape vines do alright I guess. But that there looks like deliberate and unseasonable butchery for dramatic effect.

They should leave drama to the artists and then pay them for it. And if they screwed with the city's trees trying to strike break, they ought to pay for that, too. That image of those trees is just stark stupid miser shit. 

UPDATES: Why looky here! Apparently, the city had nothing to do with the pruning mess, and that's an unfair practices violation in addition to the city investigation.  Looks like some FA is going to be followed with FO.

Good. 

UPDATE: They got fined all of $250 by the city?

Shiny Happy People

 

I cannot recommend this Amazon Prime documentary enough, because the reality of the IBLP and the legacy of Bill Gothard has a real impact on politics today. The "Evangelical vote" in this country is about, to some degree, this anti-science and abusive cult of kept-sweet femininity and abusive masculine authority. It's about deadening children's creativity and independence.  It's about reinforcing gender stereotypes and blaming victims for their abuse. It's about taking away the voices of the abused. 

It's about taking away scientific facts, and inserting one's own religious bias.  You know how they do. It's about wisdom books that have no wisdom in them. It's about elevating positive thinking and shutting down critical thinking. It's about denying reality and smiling when the camera is on. It's about little kids being made emissaries of their parents' religion and not being compensated. It's about Jim Bob Duggar being a stingy controlling SOB. It's about Mike Huckabee helping whitewash child abuse. 

When you look at Josh Hawley and his weird kvetching about masculinity, or the Liberty Mommies astroturf bullshit--you are seeing something that stems from this movement. They want to be the umbrella over you to prevent Satan doing his closet boogeyman stuff to your life. It's kind of really well-funded and super-sad. Because it is rooted in patriarchy and ignorance and weirdos who want to spank little kids. 

Barbara Walters, RIP

This was exactly the kind of job more interviewers could have done and should have done more often. She was sometimes underestimated, often imitated, but definitely a trailblazer for women in tv journalism and an inspiration to many. 

Mayberry RIP

 

I know this was a rerun, but I did not see it in its original airing, so it struck me with a weird kind of uncanniness--the CBS Sunday Morning show did a piece on Mount Airy, NC, which is sort of acknowledged as the model for the fictional town of Mayberry, the home of The Andy Griffith Show.  It originally aired 9 months after 1/6.  I knew at once I wanted to blog about it. 

I live in one of the big cities that one of the Mount Airy people seems to believe get "burned down every day". It does not. No big cities are getting burned down every day by either BLM or antifa. We are very intact, thanks! If we were not, we are not stupid and would move or something. We would extremely fund the police. We'd be electing really harsh prosecutors. Actually, when they find the arsonists fucking up stuff during BLM protests, it's false flag shit from white supremacists. 

Per Aspera Ad Astra

 

A life well lived is one that will be long-remembered, and Nichelle Nichols truly lived that meaningful life, where the example of talent and heart, interest and intellect, will long outlast the mortal journey. Her portrayal of Starfleet officer Lt. Nyota Uhura, an African woman who was a key crew member of the Enterprise 's bridge on the influential original Star Trek series, did not only entertain but inspired by representing to young people what could and should be. 

That her work on that sf tv program, so influential some of us want to see it as our aspirational future world, was seen as vital by Dr. Martin Luther King, and lead to her own considerable influence in the careers of actors and NASA figures--scientists and astronauts alike, is a story about her commitment to the idea of the future and human advancement. 

We humans are a messy folk, but there are people among us who remind us to look to the stars. Nichelle Nichols did that so uniquely. Set course for home--among the stars. 

Don't Sleep On Lovecraft Country

I originally thought this blog would be a hell of a lot more book, movie and tv reviews than it ended up being, but when something is just amazing, I will still let you know--and HBO's Lovecraft Country series, produced by Jordan Peele (which let me know this was going to be astounding quality) is actually better than I even hoped it would be and at episode three is hitting its pace.

I liked the book (it was one of those finds I have talked about when you go into a brick and mortar bookstore with a real bookstore smell and maybe even a bookstore cat in it--like Farley's in New Hope, PA, which was where I picked up Matt Ruff's inspired novel, where the kind of book you want to read finds you) but converted to television, in the hands of a great storyteller like Misha Green and with talent like Jurnee Smollett I have been blown away.

As with the remarkable HBO serial Watchmen, Lovecraft Country incorporates seldom-reviewed episodes of American history (like the Greenwood Massacre or the Turnbull Park Homes Race Riots) into outstanding genre entertainment. It is beautifully layered. In the most recent episode, which inspired this post, the ghosts of a tortured past are made whole by their names being spoken, and their supernatural horror is pitched against the very physical danger of white supremacy. The Black protagonists are terrorized by the local constabulary (in a wagon ride reminiscent of Freddie Gray's last "rough ride", Leticia Lewis is told about how her complaints to the law are lost, while they know very well about complaints made by her neighbors) and in a "are you for real?" kids being kids in an very obvious to 1950s kids Addams Family/Munsters haunted house-ass-looking haunted house, one of the kids playing with a Ouija board seems to be Emmett Till.

One part of the ouija board scene in this week’s @LovecraftHBO briefly chilled my bones. The little boy who asked if he’d have a good time on his upcoming trip. The board said no, and if you look closely we know why: pic.twitter.com/JWdKXcys6i

— Lee Bey (@LEEBEY) August 31, 2020

And here I was wondering if the tenant named Baldwin meant anything since the show quoted James Baldwin at length in episode 1 (and here we are at only episode 3, and it's already felt like a journey!)

This is good damn tv, and I recommend it highly. But maybe don't sleep on it--put a little something lighter between your viewing it and bedtime. Because here there be ghosts and magicians and bad things that burn crosses in the night. It can be a lot.

But it's really good.

Spinning Doctors

Without going over the various bad takes, misinformation, and propaganda engaged in by certain people who theoretically should know better, it might be a good time for people to reflect that just because you see someone on television calling themselves a doctor doesn't mean they are necessarily a good doctor, a specialist in all things medical, or even know what the hell they are talking about.

Fox News has been trotting out celebrity doctors who have some notoriety to push messages about possible remedies for COVID-19 (chloroquine) and minimizing the seriousness of the virus and the potential harms related to returning to business. They know these people are trusted names and faces to people who feel like they simply wouldn't have been around so long giving advice if they weren't on the up-and-up. For goodness sakes! We've know them for years, right?

But they mostly serve as self-help reality show hosts. They mine real-life stories about addiction, dysfunction, mental illness, etc., for content, and then engage in a kind of hope-peddling. Maybe you, the radio-listener, the television-viewer, will learn something from what you are witnessing. Read these books, take these pills, follow this common-sense sounding advice, and you know....

You'll probably be fine.

The content feels informative and valuable. But it's more like infotainment.

Which is a  problem when these guys are brought out on Fox News. People need real information they can use, not to be entertained, soothed, or fed junk. After all, haven't we clued in by now that maybe, just maybe, there's something sketchy about trusting people just because you see them on tv shows?

And maybe there's something questionable about networks other than FOX using them as experts as well? It's worth considering.

Easy as ABC

ABC News confirmed that it has suspended a journalist after he identified himself as a “socialist” in a video released by the right-wing undercover operation Project Veritas https://t.co/JJL1vX4DDc

— POLITICO (@politico) February 26, 2020

Let's say you are the head of a major mainstream television news division, and you have discovered that Project Veritas has uncovered your terrible secret: you have hired human beings within your company that have (GASP!) personal viewpoints when they are off the clock and sometimes even discuss them during what they believe to be a private conversation. Keep in mind: You are a major mainstream television news and they are Project Veritas. What do you do?

The actual answer is, you should laugh at Project fucking Veritas for pretending they've uncovered media bias, for the simple fact that this is not, actually, a test of your journalism but a stunt pulled by the dildo boat asshole and his friends who are, specifically, right wing activists. They aren't out there punking OANN for nonbiased journamalism. They are up the major networks' butts for fun and profit.

Ironically, the only game Wright gave away was explaining that he and others were kept on a leash to not challenge the Trump Administration strongly for fear of appearing biased, or admit when Trump got things right.

Wright and a man identified as producer Andy Fies also discuss a bevvy of complaints about broadcast news, many of which echo widespread gripes about the horserace nature of political journalism writ large.

They had especially harsh words for their employer about its coverage of President Donald Trump, who Wright at one point refers to as "this f--king president," complaining that Trump has put news outlets in "an awkward moment" where "we can’t figure out how to challenge him."

“We don’t hold him to account,” Wright says in the video, the subtitles for which indicate that he is referring to the president. “We also don’t give him credit for what things he does do.”

Fuck. There was the opportunity to seize on that and admit to just trying too hard to please everyone for the corporate brand, and welp--promise to just try harder to hold everyone properly accountable in future, thanks for the object lesson, assholes from Project Vertas. What we see from ABC is a big company backed by a bigger company, a giant, cringing before a flea.

ABC, what does your news division stand for, that it is harassed by a wholly partisan troll organization into determining your personnel decisions for you? That feels like giving away power to those who did nothing, not one thing, to deserve it. ABC wired a part of their credibility, like so many dollars to a con artist,to dumbass activist dorks.

And it looked so easy. Easy as ABC.

Toto, I Have a Feeling...

After discovering that sneaky Kansas City had been in Missouri, Trump deleted his Tweet, which I guess is better than trying to change the map by executive decree or something. I don't know what we expect. This is, after all, the guy who Lamar Alexander said on Meet the Press just wouldn't know you're supposed to go to your own Attorney General regarding suspicions of corruption against a US individual. But you know. He'll learn from all of this.

Baby steps for a toddler president.

In other funny things from the Super Bowl, I've seen some pecksniffery about the half-time show out on the intertubes.

It's always weird here in the 21st century to hear about them skimpily-clad jezebels with their jazz dances, destroying the morals of our youths.

Trump's Still Big. It's the Pictures That Got Small. Er.

Trump tells this annoying Kevin person exactly where he can go, like a real (TM) New Yorker would.

So, it looks like the President, who has definitely been impeached despite the opinion of a few lawyers (who are totally sucking up or trying to be special), is pretty sure that photogenic legacy-PM of Canada, Justin Trudeau, had a hand in the CBC's editing out of Trump's really brief cameo in that time-honored cinematic classic, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. Because obviously, the 7 seconds he got as a part of a rider to film on his property were integral to the plot, and you know, you have to preserve the movie as made, so only politics could cause anyone to butcher a movie by editing out its biggest celebrity!

Especially someone with his very own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame! (They don't just give those away, you know.  Nor can they just vote them away.  Even if people really, really wanted to.) 

I think it is definitely possible that Trudeau has no idea at all how hard someone like Trump has worked for the recognition he has received in Hollywood.  Does an IMDB page like this happen by accident? I should certainly think not! 

But just imagine if everyone did realize how hard Trump worked to be considered a celebrity and understood this to be a visible sore point with him, when he is not recognized for his genius at television and movies and all that? Ouch! Like, if actual movie stars understood his slights came from a place of sick jealousy? If more politicians understood the same?

That would be a terrible sore bunion for people to step on, would it not? But Trump needn't worry--there are some videos he hasn't been edited out of, I suppose, available where that sort of thing is traded. 

That could be some solace, or maybe not. I'm not very knowledgeable about such things, myself. 

The Old Boys' Club

Many of the NBC executives who obstructed Ronan Farrow's investigation into Harvey Weinstein have been accused of sexual misconduct themselves, Farrow reports in his new book. https://t.co/t2WPp6Yg2H

— NPR (@NPR) October 11, 2019

I recall when writing about Fox News' ongoing issues with Bill O'Reilly and Roger Ailes' multiple allegations of sexual misconduct as thinking of this culture as probably being unique to that institution of retrograde and cranky notions, even though I should know better. When you hear that someone like Matt Lauer* was able to survive as a top-paid media personality for years despite allegations of sexual misconduct, it has to be necessary to examine the culture that tolerated him. It's the same culture that tolerated Harvey Weinstein, even killing stories about him because for some reason, networks didn't want to pursue issues about rape and sexual harassment. Fox News and NBC aren't even in a class by themselves. CBS was a horror-show, and not just regarding news personalities.

It's depressing that men have covered for men in this way. It's disturbing to know that men you considered more or less decent and intelligent are drawn to sex pests (even pedophiles) as friends, despite knowing full well the counts against them as human beings. It's freakish to witness a credibly-accused attempted acquaintance-rapist sits on a SCOTUS bench, and has his alleged sins wiped away by a multiply-accused President* in front of a group of so-called "Values Voters"*.

Trump on sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh: "They're phony stories about him. They were made up. Just like they are made up about me and other people." pic.twitter.com/DY98aKEcjn

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 12, 2019

And you can see these people who believe they are the good people applaud, because obviously, the kinds of women who make accusations aren't the good kind of people, because they are fallen, and the kind of men accusations are made about are the right sort of people, because they have risen in the world. (I can honestly not think of anything that puts me off religion than exactly this kind of thinking.)

If that is not "rape culture"--an entire culture where abuse against people on account of sex is pardoned and excused and ignored, I do not know what else to call it. Ecrasez l'infame!

* Yikes--Matt Lauer.  We shall never wonder "Where in the world?" but only "What in the world?" from this point on.

* Forty-three new allegations are detailed in a book regarding President Trump's relationships with women. This is Bill Cosby-level accusations.  Donald Trump worked for NBC on a show called The Celebrity Apprentice and is also alleged to have horked shit-tons of Adderall up his face. And I think it really shows.

*The Family Research Council is an actual hate group against LGBT people. Appearing before these assholes should be considered an insult to every person in the queer mishpocha. Call it "virtue-signaling" on my part for saying so.

Can I Get a Witness?

Damn. I did not realize that Sean Spicer was out there shaking his groove thang as a powerful witness to Christ through the language of dance as opposed to being a discredited lying hack trying to improve his Q score by appearing fuzzy and relatable.

Well, if you can't dance, I wouldn't want to be a part of your culture war, anyway.

(I don't know what's up--I screen-capped because the Tweet wouldn't embed.)

This is Actually Not a Good Comeback

“Omarosa was fired three times on ‘The Apprentice’ and this is the fourth time we let her go,” Deputy Press Sec. Raj Shah says. pic.twitter.com/Am5wNM67UJ

— NBC News (@NBCNews) February 8, 2018

Deputy Press Secretary Raj Shah referring to Omarosa Manigault-Newman's latest firing as her "fourth" is weak for a lot of reasons, and I just wanted to spend a minute breaking them down because this being said during a White House Press briefing bothers me:

1) The previous three times Manigault-Newman was fired was on a reality television show. Everybody knows those things are scripted to some extent. That isn't real life.

2) But then Shah says "the fourth time we let her go" like working at the White House is "The Apprentice Season 15: DC Follies" or some such nonsense. What in the hell does he mean by "we"?

3) If her being fired from "The Apprentice" three times meant anything, why was she hired for a White House job? She got fired three damn times from a reality tv show, and then got hired for a White House job--who did that? Who did that?

4) The Deputy Press Secretary is making this comment during a White House Press briefing because I presume Sarah Huckabee Sanders would rather vape dead skunk than answer questions about Omarosa or Rob Porter because she's human, but really--quitting outright is definitely an option, right?

5) He's also making this comment during a White House Press Briefing because a former White House staffer is now saying things about the administration on another reality tv show. Not on "Meet the Press". Not on "Face the Nation". On "Big Brother". So, the cool grown-up move after all other grown-up moves have failed would be "We don't have a comment about former staffers who are now on reality tv shows." Because this is the White House, which is real life and important stuff, and that is reality tv.

6) But this White House is a clusterfuck, so they basically just admitted they are the equivalent of a reality tv show, because why not?

RIP Rose Marie

Rose Marie was a regular on The Dick Van Dyke Show, which was one of my favorite syndicated reruns as a kid (obviously, it was already old when I was young). It's kind of hard not to like Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore and Morey Amsterdam, but you know? It was Rose Marie as Sally Rogers that I identified with. She was mouthy and sharp and sometimes awkward. She might have waited around for her Herman Glimscher to finally come across with a proposal, but you kind of knew her character wasn't ever going to settle for someone who didn't appreciate her for her talent, and she scared suitors off with her outsized personality. Rose Marie's delivery and comedic timing came at the speed of seeming like the effortless ad lib of an actual gifted comedy writer. She was herself gifted, humorous, and already, by then, an entertainment veteran.

In her 94 years, Rose Marie spent most of them performing, and her earliest performances are a revelation and actually, are also really adorable.





I followed her on Twitter only really recently. There is a great movie of her life that says so much about the business, and she also had a #metoo experience. Following her on Twitter was a little like having a kind of grandparent of comedy influence to hear from and appreciate, if that makes any sense. (I have been fresh out of grandparents for a few years now, but you never lose the need to have beloved elders to teach you things about the past.) I loved her, her talent, her sharing her story. She was unique and I will miss her.

I'm kind of happy for that little while she was on Twitter and we could hear from her and know she was still around before she left us. She did not go out as a trivia question or a person people of a certain age might suppose had already left us. She left us knowing she was still an outsize, kind and beautiful person with a lot to tell us about her experiences. She had an amazing run.

Aaaand Boom Goes the Dynamite.

The above Twitter screencap shows President Trump's very busy morning.

The United States has a president whose mind veers from whether the former POTUS wiretapped him, to whether Arnold Schwarzenegger  really quit or was fired from Celebrity Apprentice.

This is not normal. 

Although it is possible that FBI Director Comey could have gotten a warrant for wiretaps if there was significant evidence of possible wrongdoing, Trump's allegations that Obama ordered any such a thing is without grounds (so Trump--is either inadvertently telling on himself, or a total fabulist).

I don't think we even need to address what happened to the Celebrity Apprentice in light of that. It seems...small.

Moral Hazzard

I guess the most strange argument in favor of the Stars and Bars comes from Miss Tamara Scott, who believes that most young people associate the Confederate Battle Flag with the Dukes of Hazzard tv show, anyway, but still somehow thinks we need to preserve the history of what it meant, if we can kind of not allow that it meant slavery in the Civil War sense and segregation and Jim Crow in the 1960's anti-civil rights sense.

Now, I am middle-aged, so I actually watched Dukes of Hazzard  as a kid, and I never thought anything wrongheaded about the show. But I also know that no person in their right mind sees that flag over a statehouse in any state and thinks "That state must really enjoy that show, Dukes of Hazzard. I wonder what South Carolina's favorite Duke boy is--Bo? Luke? Or is it David?"  (Actually, this show was all about car chases and those Duke boys in really tight jeans for pre-teen me.)

If the flying of this flag means history, then I seriously wonder why, in states where this would matter, there is an objection to so many of the particulars being taught. But I know for certain if it meant no more right now than that show I watched when I was a kid, no, okay, you can take that down now. And if it meant a flag where it symbolized black people were "less than", I'm thinking take it down like sixty years ago. Go back in time and do that.

Getting the Duggar Interview out of My System

Sometimes I really want to leave a particular story be and just stop blogging about it, but something about it won't let me--the Duggars are that way. I never had any interest in their reality show because I basically think reality tv is a sign, in and of itself, of a kind of unhealthy exhibitionism. What's the pull in watching the day-to-day doings of your friendly next-door conservative Christian fertility cultists? The most I could sniff about is that a reality show is inherently exploitative, and that, since many of the children are minors--they don't really have the ability to knowingly consent to having their family's business aired. That these kids are otherwise very highly sheltered from what I would think of as "the world" never struck me as being as obviously a problem.  It's a bit easy to assume that the Duggar parents, however, have some idea of what they're doing.

It's easy enough for me, not being a parent, to snipe. But the interview revealed certain things (Salon uses the term "horrifying"--which only seems sensational until you think about the context) that make me genuinely wonder what they think they are sheltering their children from. Because among the things they actually said out loud where people could hear is that they compared notes with other families and what Josh Duggar did wasn't that bad.

I am assuming they did not join a support group, where one might expect to find people with similar experiences, but they just happen to be around people who have their kids feeling up on each other. Their homeschooling mentor Bill Gothard was a serial sexual harasser and the law enforcement officer they turned to to give their son a stern talking-to was deep into the child porn.

Do these people know anyone with a healthy concept of sexual boundaries?

There's Outrage, and Then There's The Defense of the Indefensible...

I don't agree with Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh on very much, so I really don't follow them and don't blog about "OMG, this terrible thing some pundit said!" because really? What would be the point? They have a right to express their opinions, and while I can say they are dumb opinions or how I don't agree, it makes very little difference--except for this recent confluence of exquisitely grotesque pro-abuse and pro-rape comments that made me seriously wonder what the fuck they were about.

Just to start with Hannity--

Hannity explained that he was hit by his father as a child, and he turned out just fine.

"I got hit with a strap. Bam, bam, bam. And I have never been to a shrink. I will tell you that I deserved it," he said.

"I think he went far," Hannity then said about Peterson. "But I don’t want to see this guy get a felony, I don’t want to see this guy lose his job. He deserves parenting classes."

Hannity then took off his belt to demonstrate the technique.

There are a lot of people who were paddled or whipped as kids, firmly, not to excess, and who lived and did well for themselves. But boasting that one has never been to a shrink is not that same as saying one hasn't experienced after-effects of one's abuse, and there could be an argument made that the discipline Hannity received taught him to be a punch-down, kiss-up authoritarian personality who goes out of his way to excuse power and malign the underdog. Just saying. But there's a real disconnect when someone tries to excuse the switch-beating of a four year old child that leaves cuts in his legs and scrotum. That just isn't acceptable. If Hannity can't see that this is a question not about the ability of parents to discipline, but the extent to which they carry that discipline out, then I really wonder. Can't parents carry out loving discipline that isn't harmful, and instill values by living them? Is that so preposterous? (For the record I may have been spanked, by hand, once in my life, by my parents. Never an implement.)

Meet the Press: The Optical Delusion 2

Via Balloon-Juice:

I'm perplexed on pivot to the economy and domestic cheerleading in that speech--confusing to people, different kind of USA exceptionalism
— Luke Russert (@LukeRussert) September 11, 2014

That being said, Obama was forceful tonight in his delivery and presentation so if you didn't process the words, it looked/sounded ok
— Luke Russert (@LukeRussert) September 11, 2014

Which essentially shows that the "optical delusion" dynamic is essentially the same as it ever was.

But this is your media on Twitter (imagine an egg cracked into a skillet in a very '80's War on Drugs era metaphor).