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Fending for myself: Donna\u00a0drove to Palm Springs to spend a few days with her sister and niece. Right after she left I heard one of the dogs howling. And she thinks they love me more than her!<\/p>\nFending for myself: Donna\u00a0drove to Palm Springs to spend a few days with her sister and niece. Right after she left I heard one of the dogs howling. And she thinks they love me more than her!<\/p>\n
Since I had the TV to myself last night, I turned on Netflix to watch\u00a0what must be the shittiest Stephen King movie ever, “Stephen King’s Silver Bullet.” In terms of dialog, hammy acting, even the color and graininess of the film, it might have been a spaghetti western (or a 1980s porn flick). Afterward I cleansed my mental palate with the first episode of “3%,” a Brazilian sci-fi TV series, followed by an episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” We\u00a0never watched Buffy back in the day. Friends kept telling us\u00a0it was good, and maybe even culturally important. Okay then. Don’t know about Donna, but Buffy’s\u00a0growing on me.<\/p>\n
Donna’s back went out again earlier this week, forcing her to delay the\u00a0Palm Springs trip one day. I’m worried her back issues are\u00a0becoming\u00a0chronic. She started physical therapy, and if it has a positive effect we’ll have to get her an Anytime Fitness membership so she can continue exercising\u00a0once the PT runs out. For sure my own Anytime Fitness membership needs more use than it’s getting.<\/p>\n
When I think of going to the gym I think of Fox News, because the gym rats work out to it. Speaking of right-wing media, have you noticed how all the\u00a0interviewees on NPR these days are conservatives and administration apologists? Despite the liberal bent\u00a0of some NPR correspondents, this translates to a near-constant pro-Trump message. At NPR, progressives are out of power and thus out of fashion. The welcome mat is still out at\u00a0Chris Hayes’ and\u00a0Rachel Maddow’s shows on MSNBC, but that may be only because conservatives, GOP congressmen, and Trump administration officials refuse to go on those shows.<\/p>\n
That’s not to say prominent progressives with media platforms aren’t still out there. God knows a lot of them are raking in money making fun of the\u00a0naked emperor, but as I said many times during the heyday of Jon Stewart and The Daily Show, making light of\u00a0existential danger helps the wrong side. I keep remembering a friend’s incisive\u00a0remark on Jon Stewart’s retirement:<\/p>\n
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She was right. We laughed, and look where we are now. Sure, we’ve still got Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah, and Alec Baldwin on SNL, but like Jon Stewart, they’re part of the corporate media system. The net effect of their satire and comedy is the\u00a0venting off of rage at the sharp rightward turn of\u00a0American politics and governance. Laughing and sneering does nothing to stop the immiseration of American lives or\u00a0the dismantling of institutions and society. Action is what we need\u00a0\u2026 and that, I believe, is nowhere on corporate media’s\u00a0list of priorities.<\/p>\n
Oh there I go again. You’ve read\u00a0it all before. I can’t promise I won’t subject you to more in future posts, but we’ll move on for now. Here’s a photo of my friend\u00a0Ed’s garage, or maybe I should say “garage complex” (I can only dream).<\/p>\n
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