"When you're writing, you're conjuring. It's a ritual, and you need to be brave and respectful and sometimes get out of the way of whatever it is that you're inviting into the room.”
-- Tom Waits, writer and musician
Links:
- Kathleen Parker and the Dead Parrot of Rational Conservatism
- David Brooks: America's Joyless Both-Siderist Robot
- Joe Biden and Stephen Colbert: Brothers-in-Grief
5 comments:
In episode 300, you called Kin Davis "whorey" for having four marriages. In this one, you call Coultergeist a "bitch".
Knock off the casual misogyny, unless you'd like to lose a listener.
Just a little correction. Invasion of the Body Snatchers is asked on Body Snatchers by Jack Finney. Also known for the time travel novel Time and Again.
The first clip in Science Fiction University reminded me of the PSA about a world without Zinc from The Simpsons: https://youtu.be/U1iCZpFMYd0
My review of the "debate":
The Asylum of the GOP
The undiluted insanity on parade during the GOP debate last night was intense beyond expectations (and that's no small accomplishment). It all started with CNN making love to itself in the opening ceremony, starting with a video that resembled a theater trailer for a campy action movie and ending with a performance of the national anthem, as if what should have been a formal debate was some sporting event. The logo "CNN" was plastered everywhere on stage that the eye might wander and one could just hear the executives on CNN cheering from their observation suite, "Ha ha, yeah, in your face, Fox!" The entire travesty of an event that ought to be a serious opportunity for voters to make an informed decision was set in a most fitting venue, the library of an actor-made-figurehead-president who's administrative history has been completely rewritten. Stephen Colbert picked a great time to retire from his Repor(t) as clearly there was nowhere to go for any satirist seeking to mock the carnival atmosphere.
Then the candidates opened their mouths and, in a strange way, the farcical framing seemed to fit the event. It's all just show biz anyway, barely based on a true story.
It's just as well that the major news outlets, CNN included, have abandoned the time honored practice of journalism, complete with all that tedious investigation and fact-checking of our politicians. Now, it's just entertainment. Place a microphone in front of a politician, let them say whatever they want to say and "report the controversy". I say "just as well" because the lies and delusions came pouring down like individual rain drops in a Kentucky thunderstorm. I pity the hapless blogger who seeks to fact-check every word spoken by any candidate last night, for surely they will wear out their "pause" and "rewind" buttons in a process that would take days of labor we once paid actual reporters to do. Had the moderators interrupted any candidate to correct them, we'd have never gotten through the first round of questions.
Here are just a few facts that leap to mind when reflecting on the sleaze parade we saw last night:
1. The "Planned Parenthood Video" was deceptively edited and has been completely debunked, just like the "Acorn Video" you didn't care wasn't really true.
2. There is no scandal in Benghazi.
3. W Bush signed the "status of forces agreement" with Iraq in 2008, putting down a timetable for our withdraw (after Bush had railed against time tables for withdraw in 2004). It wasn't Obama's decision.
4. Really, the Planned Parenthood Video was a fraud.
5. Our economy is better off now than it was at the end of the W Bush administration.
6. Our military isn't underfunded (with the notable exception of the VA, which clearly is).
7. Look, we've known about how the Planned Parenthood Video has been debunked for more than a month now.
8. Iran and ISIS are fighting each other. Think about that carefully before you bomb Iran.
9. We've tried cutting taxes and deregulation for almost 40 years now. It doesn't "trickle down". It's often the prelude to a meltdown and bailout.
10. Knock it off with The Planned Parenthood Video and give Benghazi a rest already.
But these facts will mean nothing to a party that has become completely unhinged, having retreated into its fantasy world of neo-con bluster, outdated theocracy and Randite flim-flam. We can predict the GOP will continue to delve ever deeper into the Rabbit Hole and can only hope they don't take the rest of the country, and the world, with it.
Deist, that was a brilliant and skillfully written analysis of the CNN debate. It's better than anything I've read in pr int. Please consider, if you have not done so already, sending an edited version as a letter to the editor in your regional and local papers. From my experience, they will print the letter if you stay within the word count limits.
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