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March 12, 2012 - March 4, 2012

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

THE PROBLEM IS NOT WITH OUR STARS BUT OURSELVES. UNLESS IT'S THE STARS INSTEAD. Everybody in South Jersey has been down with very bad colds for the past week, some suffering, some nursing, and then vice versa. Anything that may seem like silence over the past seven days is merely a barely audible sniffling and mute resentment about loss of appetite coupled with an admittedly irrational resentment at the world's failure to amuse the sick or their equally petulant caregivers.

Why I'm inclined to sulk past most of the stories that are obsessing the 24/7 news cycle. The Wisconsin tantrum? Just stop it. You're out of money. Even featherbedders (look it up) eventually sleep on cots at the shelter when the tornado hits. The danger of a federal government shutdown ("Dyn-jah, dyn-jah, dyn-jah," as Steve Irwin used to say). Oh shut up. They'll squish together a way of spending less money without shutting down the government or addressing the real problem, which is why it's the individual states who are suddenly having to take responsibility. The pan-mideastern democracy movement? Don't make me laugh. Except in Israel and (much more remotely) Iraq, democracy isn't on the table and never has been in the contemporary Dark Age we call the Arab World. The president is unable to find anything beyond platitudes and bland nostrums about human rights to say while the house of cards that comprises the richest muslim-dominated governments in the world collapses virtually overnight? So what else is new? He's never had anything but platitudes and bland nostrums to offer, except when he's interjecting his wildly inflated estimation of his own importance into public occasions like his Nobel acceptance speech for a peace he's done more to dynamite (Ah! Nobel!) than anyone since Jimmy Carter and his no doubt heartfelt desire to legitimize muslim hatred of the United States and Israel by apologizing for the express policies that have kept Arab nations from the meltdown we are presently witnessing.

I'm not with those who are criticizing Obama for being AWOL in the current crisis. Since everything he says has a habit of making things worse, I say, "Shut the fuck up." Sometimes silence is at least copper if it isn't golden or even silver.. Yeah, we'd be better served by having an actual president, but since we don't, go play golf, talk calories with your wife, fill in your March Madness card, and make speeches about the glory of labor unions in places where people are myopic enough not to notice how much you've already done to destroy our country and cripple the stability and economic resilience of the world.

But there's one thing about the mideast disaster I am interested by. I think it's important even though it doesn't involve heads of state, regime change, or the constant, continuing perfidy of Israel which even the MSM thought important enough to cover with respect to Ambassador Sally Rice's quavering, apologetic veto of the U.N. Security Council's determination to condemn Israel for illegal settlements in the Gaza Strip.

Is this disgust? Or is it just Mucinex? You decide.

Let me back you up to September 2006, when I was one of the first reviewers of Katie Couric after she took over Dan Rather's anchor chair at CBS News. [Here's some constructive advice I offered subsequently 1. 2.] And here's an excerpt I quoted from WAPO media critic Tom Shales in my original review on the subject of what female journalists were facing in a male-dominated world:


I think MSNBC's Ashley Banfield had a similar experience, confined to a protected perimeter while male journalists were allowed to embed with troops and get shot at, blown up, and killed just like real troops. Some did. Like Daniel Pearl, who had his head cut off on camera and broadcast to the entire world. And ABC's Bob Woodruff, who received a grievous brain injury from an IED and courageously demonstrated the steps of his recovery to national audiences. (Please take all the links in this piece. They're all important.)

Now I want to remind you of a story that made barely a ripple in the world press because its source (uh, CBS News) wanted to bury it on behalf of the victim:



What's mentioned in the video but not in the abbreviated release is the term "sustained sexual assault." After which, CBS brings down the curtain and tells us she is recovering with family and friends, and there will be no further comment.

Problems I have with this network news posture.

Multiple. Nothing I'm asking you to judge Lara Logan for. Just things I'm just asking you all to think about.


Okay. Mucinex. I admit it. I sill feel like shit.

Not going to pull it together. Fed up. I'm fed up. Principally because there are no men left.

Condolences to Lara Logan. I am sorry for what happened to you.  But it's really not worse than what happened to thousands of others who took up arms against barbarians and are now recovering a sexuality permanently damaged by lost limbs, damaged faces, and imperiled minds.

Just saying. If women are going to be equal in our world, then it's time for women to concede that penetration isn't the only unforgivable sin our enemies seek to exact.

Consider this: If we use our fear of irrational Islamic hatreds as an excuse for concealing the crimes visited on our women from dangers the intelligentsia insist on projecting to everyone else -- Damn you, Sarah Palin! -- without ever acknowledging that the real danger to the world at large is irrational Islamic hatreds of the kind that are presently immolating the middle east, then there is no9thing intelligent about our analysis or response. We're just fucking idiots, waiting in line to have our throats cut. But at least we'll be able to watch our wives, mothers and sisters raped to death first.

Listen to the Columbia audio again. Don't you just love that raucous female laugh when the vet declares that bad men are trying to kill her?

My old friend from Columbia hasn't the slightest idea why I'm mad at him. He's nothing like this. Honestly. He's just, you know, better than everybody west of Rhode Island...

Which, truth to tell, makes me think he's spent a lifetime learning all the wrong lessons.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

DON'T GET ONE JUST BECAUSE THEY'RE FAMOUS NOW. I have a tee-shirt that says, "No, it's a deerhound." Because everybody asks if it's an Irish Wolfhound. I expect more of them will know now that it isn't. All you really have to do is see them move. No other breed flows quite like that.

I'm posting this post because how could I not? Raebert doesn't care. He's lying on his back on his own loveseat, looking exactly like an unmade bed. Brush him up and he looks exactly like Hickory. All deerhounds look exactly like all other deerhounds, except for details of their faces, which make them all unique. Biggest moment? After the announcement was made, the handler bent immediately to get what we call "the sighthound hug." The best moment you can have with any kind of dog. She knows. That's all that really matters.

End of post.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

LATER THE SAME DAY. I told you we had a visit from the daughter-child, and she asked if we were going to watch the Grammies, at which I laughed dismissively and was immediately surprised to hear Mrs. CP say, "Yes, indeedy." So we did. The first couple of hours anyway.

Years since I watched one of these things. But I'm glad I did. The only acts I really hated were Christina Aguilera trying to channel Aretha Franklin and the F*** You song performed by Gwyneth Paltrow and a huge guy so gay looking that Elton John tried calling to protest his costume but couldn't get through because the ghost of Liberace was screaming bloody murder across all the available phone lines. At the risk of sounding nasty, I would like to see Christina Aguilera locked in a closet until therapists can convince her there's no such thing as a race-change operation. And I want Gwyneth Paltrow to just please go away, as far and forever as possible.

But other than that, I was (gulp) pleasantly surprised, mostly. For example, I'm definitely a latecomer to the Lady Gaga phenomenon, but I actually get what she's up to. She's doing her own inspired satire of the whole female pop star routine; her 'shocking' performance was simultaneously a tribute to Madonna and a brilliant sendup of Madonna. It's performance art. What I know for sure? She definitely has a head (or two) on her shoulders, even if they're coneheads. Madonna should feel flattered and more than a little uneasy. I can see Lady Gaga a few years down the road reinventing herself not as a pseudo-Brit aristocrat but a cold-blooded, bespectacled commodities trader with a corner on the tin market.


Here's my real takeaway. Most of these young stars are genuinely talented, if not always my personal cup of tea. The young female singers can actually sing, including Rihanna and Katie Perry. Even the freakish Justin Bieber can sing far better than the dreary boy bands of old. Motown seems to be making a comeback via Bruno Mars, with echoes of the Temptations (synchronized dancing by backup singers, anyone?), Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye, and Smokey Robinson, even if they're still young and derivative to my old ears. And they've all seemingly rediscovered the charm of dressing up for big occasions. Phony anger is on the wane. They're happy to be famous and pleased to perform. Rap is fading -- Eminem's riveting on-stage command notwithstanding -- and rock and roll is dead as a doornail. A band strongly reminiscent of the Cure (uh, Muse) won best rock album against a geriatric slagpile consisting of Neil Young, Tom Petty, Pearl Jam, and Jeff Beck (!!!!)

I truly enjoyed the Mumford & Sons/Avett Brothers segment even when they tried to wreck it with an appearance by Bob Dylan. They were all so clearly enjoying themselves just making music, and the Mumford lead singer is someone we identified months ago as a genuinely affecting talent.

Of course I have quibbles. I don't see the appeal of Lady Antebellum or the other country newcomer, Miranda Lambert. Sorry. Mumford & Sons should have won best new artist. And I still know nothing about Arcade Fire, who won best record or something. But I was entertained and not offended, excepting the exceptions noted above, and I am happy to concede that it's an improvement not to have to put up with Grace Slick projectile-vomiting on stage, Cher issuing political pronouncements from the depths of her moron mind, or gold-toothed assholes sporting guns and invitations to hump in the back seat of their rented Bentleys. Never let it be said that when there's progress I refuse to admit it.

I went to bed before Jagger performed. Isn't that a humbling confession of age?


But the chick up top said he still rocks. That's some measure of vindication for us old farts who couldn't stay awake long enough to watch. Isn't it?

P.S. Just for Mrs. CP. She fell asleep even before I did and missed Eminem. She likes Eminem.


So do I. Rihanna can sing, and Eminem is a f***ing force of nature. I will never apologize for this position. (The True Test: He's better live than in the video.) She should know. (btw, in her continuing revitalization program, she just gave me a Kindle for V-Day. Thereby opening up the whole world of e-books and such to her dinosaur husband. I think she intends to get me published. She's been impossible since she got her I-phone. Are you ready?)

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