Archive for January 26, 2011

Smokin’ Date Night In DC Takes Off

No sorry, this is not a post about my social life.  I swore I wouldn’t join the pundit-infested SOTU post-mortem, and I’m only going to do so briefly, but when we’ve reached a point where the analysis includes whether or not Emily Post would be rolling over in her grave, all bets are off, although I’ll keep it brief.

Sputnik?  Really?  What percentage of Americans even know what Sputnik was?  The analogy is old, stale and just plain off the mark. That the President sees the future as a winnable race does not bode well.

And then there was the salmon joke.  Ha ha.  But not really ha ha if you consider the peril to  survival that salmon populations face these days.

The speech was delusional as SOTU’s always are. Imagine if just once, a President got up to that podium and told the truth.  In the meantime, we should take heart from Miss (Judith) Manner’s comments about the speech,

“Date night worked,” said Judith Martin, author of the syndicated Miss Manners column. “Instead of looking like a hockey game … it looked like a dignified legislature.”

One can hope.  I give it about 24 hours until the pucks start flying again.

How To Respond To KO Being KO’ed–KO MSNBC On Monday Night During KO’s Timeslot

I haven’t been watching Keith Olbermann since his damaging and self-centered behavior regarding rape and the #MooreAndMe protest.  In the aftermath of that, I felt a strong need to just not listen to those who insist on operating from a position of patriarchal arrogance and ignorance.  The quiet reflection that has become possible in the absence of those voices has been wonderful and something I’ll write more about later.

But the result is that I am reacting to his departure from MSNBC with mixed feelings. Yes he has often said what needs to be said, but as the #MooreAndMe episode illustrated, not always.  He was a white guy working for a large, white-guy preserving corporation. And some of his behavior on Twitter of late has been quite childish.  I have no idea all the factors that have led to that–the enormous stress of his job, his father’s death, etc.

So there is a bit of tarnish there, and while it is not clear whether he got fired, left or what–one thing is for sure–even if he did quit–Comcast should have begged him to stay.  But that was never in the cards and is a first very ominous indicator of just how bad their takeover of the NBCs is likely to be.

Differences aside–we can rant all we want about this, but here’s a better idea–a one night viewing stoppage.  Don’t watch  MSNBC on Monday night during Olbermann’s timeslot.  Turn it off.  Read a book, go for a walk, water your plants, talk to your neighbors and your children–whatever it takes to deal with the dt’s but turn it off and turn away. No it won’t solve the problem but Comcast bought MSNBC to make money and they need to hear that flipping off their viewers is not a good business model.  And aside from that, everybody gets a bit of tv detox, and that could be the start of a good thing.