Speaking of things to do with your hands, you can also sit on them, and sometimes you should.\u00a0 Rachel Maddow interviewed Representative Barney Frank on her show last night, and Frank fidgeted the whole time.\u00a0 His hands were all over his face, brushing his hair, smoothing his eyebrows, pulling his ears, even picking his nose.\u00a0 The nose picking was disturbing.\u00a0 It made me not like him and I quit listening.<\/p>\n
One sees the same guests over and over on cable news.\u00a0\u00a0 I’m sure the hosts try to book hostile interviewees, and Maddow in particular has had great success with that, but when they want a friendly face they turn to their small stable of favorites.\u00a0 I need a Barney Frank break.<\/p>\n
As long as I’m on the media, I’m starting to sour on Jon Stewart.\u00a0 Too many vacations, too predictable a selection of news to comment on and make fun of, too many punches pulled during interviews … I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think he’s rocking the boat like he used to.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday<\/a> I mentioned how angry I was at NPR for going all-politics-all-the-time and ignoring what’s important to normal working people.\u00a0 What set me off was a five-minute Morning Edition segment on the debt extension standoff that was nothing more than a recitation of right-wing talking points.<\/p>\n Well, it turns out that while NPR was busy fluffing the deficit hawks, CBS was actually popping the big question<\/a> to President Obama: “Can you tell the folks at home that no matter what happens, the Social Security checks are gonna go out on August the third?”\u00a0 Followed by Obama’s already famous answer: “I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on August 3rd if we haven’t resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it.”\u00a0 Way to go NPR!\u00a0 Let CBS do the heavy lifting.<\/p>\n Now that the potential consequences of failing to act are out there, Congress is finally thinking about the people.\u00a0 Oh, not in terms of what’s good for the people or what’s bad for the people … they could give a shit about that … no, they’re thinking about us in terms of what we’re going to do to them if they pull the financial rug out from under our parents and we have to put the kids in bunk beds so that grandma and grandpa can have their own bedroom.<\/p>\n So they’re busy working on extending the debt ceiling, right?\u00a0 Uh, no … they’re scrambling to make the coming crisis look like it’s Obama’s fault<\/a>.<\/p>\n Is it any wonder people despise those parasites in Washington DC?\u00a0 Is it any wonder we’d rather watch\u00a0Ow, My Balls<\/span><\/span> Wipeout than the Evening News?<\/p>\n I don’t know about you, but I need a happy photo to cheer me up.\u00a0 How about some flying dachshunds?<\/p>\n
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