2016

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I’ve already written about the 2016 Presidential election, and Chris Christie, who already appears to be signaling that he’d very much like to be president after Obama. 

 

 

Charming. Maybe, if Chris Christie is a good boy, we’ll look him over and kick his tires and see if he’s the man for the job, so long as we’re all still alive in 2016.

 

 

But, as I wrote in my previous entry: please God, don’t subject us to this yet!

 

 

I am one of those people who just want elected politicians to govern. I want them to state their goals, and work toward them, and compromise (as necessary) until those goals (or some form of them) are achieved. I don’t want it to be all about us/them, for at least two years, and preferably for at least four years.

 

 

But there are political junkies who are really only excited by the competition, by the us/them. Sadly, some of our best political commentators are among them. Chris Matthews is talking about 2016 almost every night; he’s already talking about the facedown between Hillary Clinton and Chris Christie, and what a great race it’s going to be.

 

 

You’d think that a man as smart as Matthews is supposed to be would realize that a lot of things can happen in four years. The parties often alternate the Presidency, for one thing. Also, the economy (while just beginning to show signs of recovery) isn’t quite well yet, and Europe is still teetering, which could bring trouble to the USA also.

 

 

Chris Todd on NBC is another one; he’s not as bad as Chris Matthews, but he becomes visibly excited when he starts talking about the chances of one side versus another. The late Tim Russert, with his little handheld whiteboard on which he wrote numbers and vote counts, was another. They all love the struggle, and the numbers, and the victory.

 

 

The rest of us get tired easily, and just want to know that our rights are being protected, and our retirement and health care aren’t in jeopardy. We don’t care so much who’s in office, so long as the right things are being done. We mostly understand that things keep inching forward. The War on Drugs is showing (very belated) signs of dying, or transforming into something more realistic – not a war on potheads, but an attempt to keep cocaine and meth off the streets, the really dangerous drugs. Gay identity and gay marriage are both becoming less of an issue and more of a reality. And, as the most recent election mostly demonstrated, while people in general deplore abortion, it’s a fact of life, and a necessity. Theology (AKA “personhood of the fetus”) can’t be used to determine public policy; if a woman doesn’t want to be pregnant, it’s her choice, and no one else’s.

 

 

The old world dies, and we are born into the new world.

 

 

The birth pangs are painful.

 

 

Let’s not relive them, or pretend how they’re going to feel in four years’ time.

 

 

Let’s just try to get things done.

 

 

Okay?

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Purging my Facebook page of undesirables

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Facebook has gotten labyrinthine and arcane. It’s almost impossible to find your settings, or your privacy settings.  And just try finding a list of the things you’ve “liked” over the past few years.

 

 

I finally cleaned out my list.  Cereal companies!  Pasta-sauce companies!  Actors and actresses I liked in a couple of movies!

 

 

Most of all, however, it’s left-wing detritus.  I’m left-wing myself, and (like everyone else) I like being told that I’m correct in my beliefs, and that the other side of the aisle is crazy.  But people like Keith Olbermann are so shrill!  Olbermann is our Limbaugh: a hectoring name-caller.  He reposted a silly thing back in February or March about Rick Santorum being a porn addict, which was widely attacked and which he withdrew, lamely saying that it was “a joke,” and that people had obviously misunderstood. 

 

 

Also, he posts ten or fifteen times a day.  Try that on your Facebook feed.  (It used to be your “wall.”  Now it’s – what? – your “timeline.”  Or whatever.  I can’t keep up with the new Facebook language, and I frankly don’t much care.)

 

 

Also: Olbermann was fired by his most current employer.  He is evidently unbearable.  Which is proof positive that you don’t have to be a Republican to be a jerk.

 

 

Anyway.  Who else have I purged from my Facebook friends?  Goodbye, Neil Patrick Harris.  Goodbye, Cape Cod Potato Chips.  Goodbye, Quaker Oats.  Goodbye, some odd anti-Dick Cheney group I must have joined during the Bush administration.

 

 

My Facebook feed is slightly less cluttered now.

 

 

Now I can read all about my real friends.

 

 

Like George Takei.

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Goodbye, New York Times

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The only newspaper to which I subscribe – in the sense that there’s actually an ink-and-newsprint newspaper outside my door in the morning – is the Financial Times.  I began buying it some years ago because I liked the crossword puzzle.  Then, gradually, I found its dry British take on world politics far more appealing than the MacWorld version offered by American news sources, and its business coverage was intricate and mysterious.  I don’t know much about economics, but I have always been intrigued by the subject, and I always feel, when I read FT articles about the future of the Euro or the BRICs or Emerging Markets or black swans that I am trembling on the edge of recognition and understanding. 

 

 

Also, I like the salmon-tinted paper it’s printed on.  (Somebody on the bus asked me once: “What’s the matter with your newspaper, mister?  It’s a funny color.”)

 

 

Then, of course, there is the New York Times. 

 

 

I have been a faithful follower of the NYT (both print and online) for many years.  It has nourished me in many ways.  I like its rhythm: world news, national news, local (meaning New York City) news, op-ed, culture.  It’s unabashedly liberal, and I welcome its confirmation of my beliefs and prejudices (as do we all).  And the writing is generally excellent.

 

 

A little less than a year ago, the NYT announced that its website would no longer be free.  For full access, you have to cough up fifteen bucks a month.  (That’s just digital access, mind you.  A lot of porn sites cost less than that.  Don’t ask me how I know.)  You can still read twenty articles a month for free; you can also access the Times through search engines, etc.  But if you want to romp around on their websites – culture, videos, travel, food, movies, editorials, all the things they do so well – you have to pay.

 

 

Hm, I thought back in February 2011, and prepared to do without.

 

 

Then, for no apparent reason, the Cadillac division of General Motors (with which I have no real connection) gifted me via email with a nine months’ online subscription.

 

 

It expired on December 31.

 

 

Goodbye, Maureen Dowd and Gail Collins, both of whom I read consistently, and often laughed aloud as I did so, and quoted their nastier/funnier lines to my friends.  If I were a conservative (shiver!), I would probably find them strident and silly, kind of like the way I actually feel about Rush Limbaugh.  But I agree with them.  So nyah nyah!

 

 

Goodbye, David Brooks and Ross Douthat.  The former is a cheesy social critic who plays Edmund Burke, but not very well; the latter is the token-conservative editorialist, who takes a topic – like, let’s say, Ron Paul – and finds something to like in him after all.  Also, Ross is Catholic (but then again, in his columns, he almost always reminds you of that). 

 

 

Goodbye, Bill Cunningham, bicycling around New York and taking photos of people and their outfits.  May you live forever.

 

 

Goodbye, Mark Bittman.  You got a little Hollywood over the past few years, but your writing is excellent and your recipes are very good. 

 

 

Goodbye, Frank Bruni.  He used to do restaurant reviews; now he does general (and often political) commentary, and does it very well. 

 

 

Goodbye, Seth Kugel, the Frugal Traveler, so much better and more entertaining than the guy who was the Frugal Traveler before him.

 

 

Goodbye Nick Kristof and Paul Krugman, for cheerfully leading me into the coming political / economic apocalypse.  You’ve both been right consistently.  Keep at it.

 

 

And all the rest.

 

 

I’ll still be checking in, maybe twenty times a month, or maybe more.

 

 

(Is $15/month too much to pay?  Maybe.  We’ll see.  I may start jonesing for Gail and Maureen and Paul and Frank in a few months and give in.)

 

 

But for now: goodbye, my dear and lovely friends, goodbye.

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Rush Limbaugh

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Rush Limbaugh apologized on Saturday for calling Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute.”

 

 

Well, you could have knocked me over with a bulldozer, as Dorothy Parker said.

 

 

You know the story: Fluke testified very passionately before a Democratic congressional panel about contraception as an aspect of women’s health care.  Rush intemperately demonized her, making it sound as if Fluke was popping birth-control pills uncontrollably and demanding Federal funding to pay for it.

 

 

The public turned on him. In his traditional style, he doubled down and stuck out his chin and dared the public to come get him.

 

 

And they – correction, we – did.

 

 

Petitions.  Social media. Bad press.  Bill O’Reilly tried to side with Rush the other night, and I think it actually made matters worse; it poured even more fuel on the fire, and made them both look incredible incivil and stupid.

 

 

And then the sponsors began to peel away.  Carbonite.  Sleep Train.  Sleep Number.  LegalZoom.  Citrix.  Quicken Loans.

 

 

See? If you want to punish a Republican, you take away the only thing he understands and respects: money. 

 

 

I’m sure Clear Channel was very quick to go to Rush and give him the bad news: Apologize, babe.  The jig is up.  Glenn Beck got canned by Fox, and when was the last time you saw or heard anything from him?  (He’s still around, and I know he still has a Tea Party / lunatic following, but he has nowhere near the audience he did once.)

 

 

Rush’s Saturday apology was thin and whiny and unsatisfying, but it was remarkable in that it’s really the first time he’s apologized for anything he’s said.

 

 

On Saturday morning, Mary Matalin said coolly that the liberals were silly to expect him to apologize; he’d never apologized for anything.

 

 

Surprise, surprise, Ms. Matalin!

 

 

I think this is really a by-product of the recent dust-up between the Susan Komen Foundation and Planned Parenthood.  Komen tried to tighten the political screws on Planned Parenthood; people went nuts on the Internet about it; and overnight, Komen went from Everyone’s Favorite Pink Charity to the John Birch Society.  They pulled back, they retreated.  And now people have learned the power of the Internet and social media in mobilizing on these issues.

 

 

(By the way: I wonder how Komen’s fundraising is doing?  I bet a whole bunch of people have realized that, instead of wearing pink and doing 2K runs, they could actually be giving money to other worthwhile organizations.)

 

 

And, even after Rush’s “apology,” another of his advertisers, ProFlowers, pulled out on Sunday.  It’s almost as if they want nothing to do with him.

 

 

Buckle up, Rush. This may be only the beginning.

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Spoiler alert!

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“I was watching 'Lord of the Rings' last night,” Apollonia told me not long ago. “And don't get me wrong, it's wonderful. But twelve hours! And then I was lying in bed and thinking about it. And all of a sudden I thought: Why couldn't one of the eagles just have taken the ring and dropped it into Mount Doom? Wouldn't it have been simpler?” She grimaced. “And then I realized that I have no imagination. I could never have written that story.”

 

 

“The goal is not the point of the story,” I said. “The journey is the point of the story.”

 

 

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I thought the point of the story was getting rid of the stupid ring.”

 

 

“Well,” I said, “now you know why I always read the last page of a book first. I can't stand suspense. I want to get it over with.”

 

 

She recoiled, as if I'd told her something truly horrible, like “Robert Pattinson and Tilda Swinton are actually the same person,” or “'Twilight' was actually co-written by Glenn Beck and Michelle Bachmann.” “How can you do that?” she squealed. “It goes against nature.”

 

 

“That's me all over,” I beamed. “Against nature.”

 

 

Seriously, I can't stand suspense. I like mystification and puzzles, but I noticed a long time ago that most dramatic situations end up having unsatisfactory conclusions at the end of the day. Remember “Twin Peaks”? I loved it. But then the writers thought that they actually had to explain what was going on, and everything fell apart. Ditto “The X-Files.”

 

 

 

Speaking of “The X-Files”: I was talking to my student assistant Noah the other day about the show. He's never seen it, but he loves fantasy and science fiction and crime drama, and is planning to stream the whole series on Netflix. (These kids these days and their technology!) “There was this terrific sexual tension between Mulder and Sculley on the show,” I said. “And they never really resolved it, until -”

 

 

He covered his ears with his hands. “Lalalala!” he screamed. “Don't tell me! I don't want to know!”

 

 

See? Another one. Just like Apollonia.   

 

 

 

But sometimes I find an innocent victim.

 

 

Years ago, I was attending a Film Society event at Brown, and the girl taking money at the door had the Penguin edition of “Sense and Sensibility” lying on the desk in front of her as she made change for people. (This was back in the 1980s, before every single Jane Austen novel was made into a film.) “Enjoying it?” I said, nodding at the book.

 

 

“I really am,” she said earnestly. “She writes so well. And, you know, I'm only about halfway through, and I really don't know what's going to happen. I assume they're both going to get married, but - ”

 

 

“Elinor marries Edward,” I said smoothly, “and Marianne marries Colonel Brandon.”

 

 

I have never forgotten the incredulity on her face. “Why did you tell me that - ”

 

 

But it was too late; I'd escaped.

 

 

This is one more thing I will have to account for on the Day of Judgment.

 

 

I'm against nature, remember?

 

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Sheen and Deen

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Revolution and upheaval in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Oman, Iraq.  Labor protests in Wisconsin. Budget battles in Washington.

And who gets all the attention on all the TV news shows?

You know who I'm talking about.

Well, it's hard to ignore someone who says things like “I have Adonis DNA and tiger blood.” Also that he has an “army of assassins.” Also that he has “the brain of a 10,000-year-old and the boogers of a seven-year-old.” It's like trying to ignore a naked man riding a unicycle. It's just impossible.

But it palls after a while, and becomes sad and sickening. Yesterday I was reading yet another Charlie interview, in which he was asked to react to his father's very measured appeal for reason. Charlie called it “bollocks.” He's tired of being labeled an addict, he says. Also, he was angry that his father called addiction a disease. Charlie challenged his father to (I paraphrase) “walk through a cancer ward and find anybody who looks as good as me.”

Well, that's that.

I'm as morbidly curious as anyone else. But I keep thinking of the Hogarth print of sophisticated Londoners giggling at the lunatics in Bedlam Hospital.

I'd like to think that I'm a better person than they were.

Let us move on to something more pleasant.

Paula Deen, about whom I have written before, made a stage appearance recently, during which she went on and on about her “britches fallin' down.” (It's much cuter with a Georgia accent.)

Then a big guy came up on stage, pulled up his shirt, and smeared butter on his abs.

And Paula knelt down and licked the butter off.  (Watch the clip if you don't believe me.)

And then the guy got down on all fours, and Paula rode him around the stage, while Paula's big bearded husband watched with a big goofy smile on his face.

Okay. Fine. These are the end days. I admit it now. I surrender. I will worship any deity who will rescue me from this insanity.

(Oh, Paula, Paula, Paula.)

(Oh, Charlie, Charlie, Charlie.)

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