I want a new drug....

I never really thought of myself as a junkie, but with re-runs of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert this week, I've been letting the TV drift to MSNBC and watching some of their hosts. My wife can't stand Chris Matthews, and personally I find all the yelling and talking-over-each-other very disagreeable as well. Keith Olbermann is somewhat more tolerable, but his mocking voices and bits like "worse, worser, worst" (anyone else wanna bitch slap him back to grammar school, unless he agrees to revise that to "bad, worse, worst"?) get kinda old - even if the material is topical and poignant.

Rachel Maddow is the most tolerable of the bunch, and when I first stumbled across her I was very much a fan. Lately I find her a bit too repetitive - the first half of her bit tonight about the bashing of the new supreme court nominee Sonia Sotomayor was mostly rehashing her material from yesterday (or recently) - for a while I thought I was watching a rerun.

More disturbing, however, is how this "news network" is turning more and more into an attempted mix between a formal news broadcast and comedy central. Stewart pointed it out himself, talking about their coverage of the "tea baggging" on tax day - how the MSNBC hosts were playing up to the *sexual* connotation of that term (if you still aren't all awares about that, do yourself a favor and "google" it, "wiki" it, or at least check it out at the "urban dictionary") and the obliviousness of the republican organizers, and apparently most participants and many correspondents as well.

They have really crossed the line - or jumped the shark, as it were - with segments like Keith's "WTF? moment." We all know what it stands for (or - again, look it up!), but do we really need a professional news show host to be repeatedly dumbing-down their shows and going for shock value? They have already adopted the worst aspects of network news, giving mini-teasers before commercial breaks and throughout the show, hoping to get you to stay for the end. Sometimes you hear the same lead-in / promo for whatever "story" 5-6 times before they actually get to it, and they spend less time discussing the story than they do promoting it. I guess it's tough to fill their hour-long slots. Is that why Rachel talked to a friggin' spelling bee winner for a huge segment of her show tonight?!? Ugh!!

Something I did find interesting was her reaction to all the bashing of Sonia Sotomayor. I do agree that it sounds very negative and one-sided, and I applaud the effort to bring out the true and full details of this reverse-discrimination case that is up before the current supreme court now. But along with her call to keep discussion of Sotomayor's nomination civil, she also seemed to be calling for a silencing of Sotomayor's critics. They do need to be making fact-based arguments and should be encouraged - hell, bound by their "position in society" - to be civil and respectable about things, but any reference to "silencing" the dissent or debate would be counter to our principles as a nation.

The other interesting item on her show was all this hubbub about Dick Cheney and his persistent defense of torture. Now he's got his daughter Liz Cheney hitting the trail for him as well, talking about these mysterious classified memos that demonstrate the "effectiveness" of torture. I understand she is a lawyer, but what precisely is her expertise with respect to these classified memos? Has she seen them? I don't believe she is involved highly enough to have that clearance (although I could be wrong - anyone know? I didn't see much in my initial search on-line), so unless daddy breached security and showed them to her, she really shouldn't be talking them up. As opposed to Carl Levin, who has seen the memos and is finally speaking AGAINST Cheney's claims. But just like Meghan McCain, Liz Cheney is a hot blonde republican. This is probably more related to attempting to change the image of the republican party, "rebranding" it with new faces (even if what they are spewing is old hat). If the party keeps moving in this direction, they may finally decrease their dependence on Viagra!

Meanwhile, even General Petraeus is admitting that the Bush administration violated the Geneva Convention .... I look forward to further developments on a thorough investigation and some holding of appropriate people accountable, to the U.S. as well as the people of the world that we claim to be role models for.

Ah... it feels good to rant again. More to come!

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All photos lifted from google image searches.

Jon Stewart is a GOD

I'm kicking back on the sofa, folding some laundry & watching TV, and trying to stifle my laughter as I keep distracting my wife from her work on the computer.

I can't help it. I'm starting to think that The Daily Show should be required viewing.

Jon Stewart had a particularly good segment tonight (April 7, 2009 - go check out the web page and view the first half of the show if you haven't seen it). He was making a good example of the hypocrisy of the conservatives (or should I say "ultra-conservatives"? maybe just the neocons?). He was showing clips from pundits and politicians expressing their "terror" at the "tyranny" of Obama's presidency, how it's an erosion of our rights and the Declaration of Independence.

Huh?

And (of course) he points out the criminal actions that occurred during the Bush presidency, and the nose-dive the US took in the international arena under his leadership. Contrast that with the reception that Obama got at the G20 conference, and the shared vision we are now working toward with respect to nuclear (pronounced correctly!) disarmament and the components of Obama's campaign platform.

The most poignant comparison was how - during the last eight years - anyone criticizing Bush or his policies was "unamerican." But now, not only do we have the conservatives flinging around "socialist," "tyrant," and other epithets while they criticize his policies ... we also have idiotic hate-mongers like Rush Limbaugh voicing his hopes that Obama's policies fail - even at the cost of recovery from the economic crisis. Hypocrisy at its best.

I can't help but think of what the Dixie Chicks went through after their criticism of Bush and the Iraq war in 2003 (if you missed that or need a refresher, check out their wikipedia entry. What was "high treason" then is par for the course now?

Only because their guy didn't win in '08.

I know, I know, there was a war on then, and we all get little blinders on when there are polarizing issues. But be rational - at least try to see the other side's story without automatically demonizing it. America is all about protecting freedoms - you know, like free speech? The venom that Limbaugh and some of these pundits get paid to spew - that is protected as well. I'm just glad Stewart and his colleagues (like Stephen Colbert and Rachel Maddow) are around to assemble the clips and expose the bullshit for what it is - 'cause I sure don't have the patience for all that. But at least I have hope.

Addendum 4/8/09:
Now that it is available, here is the clip I am referring to. [If you are NOT a fan, please hold tight until at least the middle - it picks up a bit more there and gets to the point(s) I was commenting on.] The rest of the episode can be seen (either as full episode, or as clips) by going to The Daily Show and clicking on "full episodes" or "videos" and selecting the appropriate date.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Baracknophobia - Obey
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

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Pictures lifted from Wikipedia. Clip from The Daily Show website.

Political rant #1 - gay marriage

Ever since the heavy pre-election coverage this year, I've been drawn back into the medium that captures the essence of the hot news and presents it in an entertaining format - political satire, frequently well-represented by The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report, both on Comedy Central.

Tonight Jon Stewart had Mike Huckabee (former Republican presidential candidate) on, and engaged him in a mini-debate on gay marriage. As usual, the conservative and liberal viewpoints were framed in different perspectives and they had to agree to disagree. The arguments at their most basic seemed to be: (C) - "We must preserve the sanctity of marriage as defined between a man and a woman," and (L) - "Gay people should have the same rights and benefits granted to heterosexuals."

It was quite gratifying to listen to Stewart present a very cogent argument, and I won't hide my own support for gay marriage. I was quite disappointed with the referenda this November that shot down attempts at legalization of gay marriage in multiple states. Huckabee made reference on the show to the "fact" that 68% of the population is against passing such legislation. I won't take issue with numbers because I have no idea how that polling was conducted, the demographics, how recently it was done, or any of those details. Most of us have heard the expression "lies, damn lies, and statistics" - and that holds true more often than not; depending on how you ask the question, let alone grouping and analyzing data, you can twist numbers to support your argument either way.

To be honest, I really don't care about the numbers because THEY DON'T MATTER. I don't care if 80% of the population is against something. Just because a group of people want something - or want to prevent something - doesn't mean that it is appropriate. The reason we have government is to protect citizens and deliver services that would otherwise be unlikely to happen. If it wasn't mandated by the government, how many of us would contribute money to pay for police, infrastructure, and other social services? How many people would put money aside for their retirement? But we accept taxes and social security deductions because that is a part of our responsibility in supporting the government that protects us. And it protects us in ways we did not anticipate over 200 years ago - look at the relatively recent strides in equal rights for women & blacks, and new protections from discrimination based on handicaps and religion. Those anti-discrimination statements in many systems include "sexual orientation" - an obvious evolution of the concept to protect this portion of our population.

It was a laughable moment in the VP debate in October, when Joe Biden went on a mini soapbox talking about equal rights for partners including hospital visitation, workers benefits, etc. - that [gay] partners will have (paraphrasing) "the exact same rights and privileges as spouses" - but when asked point-blank by the moderator if the democratic ticket was supporting gay marriage, he said no. It is a sad statement that - in order to minimize alienation of a portion of the electorate - the Democratic ticket had to set aside pushing that component of the agenda.

But at its heart, the issue really is about equal rights. If people were interested in legislating about the sanctity of marriage, we'd talk about the divorce rate and banning same-day marriage (i.e., running off to Vegas), requiring "marriage classes" (like some religions do), and maybe even raising the minimum consenting age. If the issue is really about parenting and establishing a family unit for raising children, we would talk about mandated parenting classes or even more aggressive regulations about who is allowed to procreate (or adopt), and when. (Both of these arguments are exemplified with the "Brittany Spears" example used by Stewart) We know it could not possibly be about preserving a religious definition of marriage, thanks to the separation of church and state. So what is left? What possible reason is there to deny two men or two women from legally committing to each other, and being granted ALL the legal and social recognition that accompanies that?

It seems to me to be the downside of tradition, the part that is slow to change simply because "it hasn't been that way before" or "we've never done it that way." Just because religious-based organizations oppose it, or because stubborn people or not ready to accept homosexuality as a fact of our society, does not mean that our goverment can ignore this component of our population or choose not to protect their rights on this issue.

The last point I'll make is again something well-stated by Stewart - opposition to gay marriage is often based on the assumption that it is a choice to be gay. Just like choosing to convert between religions may mean changing what you eat, or how you interact with people - "choosing" to be gay means denying yourself legal recognition of a union. But religion is one of those cardinal protections, and society is barred from denying you rights based on something that is undeniably a choice. But is homosexuality a choice? Many say no - and if you are guaranteed equal rights whether you are born a man or woman in our enlightened age, the same should hold true whether you are born gay or straight.

But again - the answer to THAT question is really irrelevant. Equal rights are equal rights. How can you select out something the law should NOT apply to?