Friday, April 06, 2018

Professional Left Podcast #435


"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."
-- Frank Herbert, Dune
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4 comments:

VonWenk said...

I heard Malcolm Nance making his SPECTRE analogy on The Stephanie Miller Show, basically describing Thunderball, and yet the first thing I thought of when I heard "SPECTRE" was a shadowy room and maybe Donald Trump going "coo-coo."

Concerning your review of Ready-Player-One, I was wondering if people unfamiliar with the book (like me) would feel similar to how you felt. Roy doesn't have an affair with Chief Brody's wife in the movie version of Jaws, and I've yet to hear anyone complain about the exclusion of that plot line. Then again, "It's a Good Life" was my second-least-favorite segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie, after "Kick the Can," possibly for reasons similar to your dissatisfaction with Ready-Player-One.

dinthebeast said...

You asked about some good news, so I'm gonna tell you some.
Richmond, the city a few miles north of here has had a violent reputation for a long time. Even folks who understand hype well enough to be happy living in East Oakland turn a little pale when someone mentions the "Iron Triangle" (where I once lived, by the way, and found it to be no big deal).
Well a funny thing has happened to Richmond, which is at its heart even more of a working class town than Oakland: The liberals took the place over. I mean, the liberals run the East Bay, but I'm talking liberal liberals, Green party and the like. They have a Democratic mayor now, after the Green mayor was term limited out, but he was her vice mayor prior to becoming mayor himself.
Anyway, the Richmond police chief is a big advocate of community policing and rebuilding trust between the police and the neighborhoods they serve, and apparently it's working because they haven't had a homicide since November.
There have been a few shootings, but no murders for five months.
The general level of gun violence has calmed the fuck down in recent years here, and certainly since the wild days in the late eighties when there were multiple gunfights each week outside my front door, but even Oakland has had fifteen murders this year, and while it's bigger than Richmond, that's just this year, not November and December.
So, yeah, a tidbit of unvarnished good news.
Thank you again for the podcast, it does help to hear someone else point out how damn crazy things are in the normally reassuringly boring halls of our government now that they are infested with Republicans.
Here's to a blue wave of fumigation later this year...

-Doug in Oakland

Robt said...

Your endeavor to tun through some news top stories is inevitably overwhelming..

It can become a free for all spelling bee.

If you two wrote your own top 10 news stories to address. How would the top 10 lists vary?

At what point does Trump go to the sludge pit GOP well of Obama?

Sign exec Order to banish his name and any references to Obama as president from the White House and Congress?

Will he order EPA Sec. to have the FBI to have AG Sessions conclude a investigation (because they have the answers already) that Obama was born on the 3 moon of Saturn? You know he eventually might get there as he PIVOTS to becoming a serious president?
Again,
Taking on covering the weeks news stories is a very challenging job. Even the professional news folks struggle.
But it does provide the opportunity for so much humorous fun while delivering.. It is just certain news deserves its very serious adult addressing.
Lightning news rounds? vs more coveraged items.

Side comment of media nonsense.
hannity attacking Kimmel on Jimmu's reporting.

I am curious how this is going to end. Because hannty is the fake news who is using Kimmil as a n outrage to attack to try to regain his ratings that have slid. I mean hannity must be humiliated for being beaten in the ratings by a girl. A liberal girl (maddow).

Sean feels taking on the moral issue of a late night variety/ comedy show for God and the GOP is what he needs to do to regain his honor and ratings?

Is there nothing more improtant than hannity going on attack mode to defend his Trump'shonor. Over a comdian poking a moment of fun at the Immagrant first lady at the white house of a white supremacist president deporting immigrants and trashing them. As the heavy accent of a first lady (immigrant/ wife) REads with this accent to American children. While every white supremacist can hear this foreign accent and ignore it?

This is what will bring Hannity's ratings up?
maybe Seany should take his show live to the White House grounds. Like he did over Trri Shivo.

I really do find this as ridiculously trivial funny as Rush trying to speak out on his show on long jail time for Drug offenders.

By the way, As president Dennison pivoted as he has or is or is said to be on the verge of.
Broadcasting to the world he is going to pull troops out of Syria. You know, telling the enemy you are moving thousands of troops. That they or no one else would ever notice on their own at some point. Sending in small strike teams etc. is understandably something that can and should be unannounced. Somehow it amazes me, tRuMp announces big troop movements that are self announces because of the massiveness. Was there self awareness? A conscienceless of his positions, criticisms etc ?

For the record, all those generals he knows and loves. Not bringing any more into the Adm as he sends them packing?

Where is Bernie Madoff? He would be perfect to run the V.A...


dinthebeast said...

God damn it, as soon as I run my mouth about it there are two murders in a two day period.

-Doug in Oakland