Although it also means “still or stationary,” I do not see how it can be all that snapping and crackling yet also mean non-movement and stationariness. Which IS a word because I looked it up. No matter what WordPress says about it.
Nothing static this morning except me and that’s only because I haven’t woken up yet.
Newsflash:the snow is gone! It poured for three days. Not some little old rain, but the old end of spring full-on deluge kind of rain … except it’s just January and that’s not supposed to happen until March in time for the floods.
Winter post snow
And overnight, the warm weather of yesterday flew away and it’s cold. Good news? Mud is frozen! Bad news? It will thaw. It always thaws.
As it happens, I have a deep devotion to rubber duckies and in particular, Celebriducks. I would own more of them because they are my very favorite rubber duckies, but there’s no more room in this house for anything, no matter how much I like it.
Groucho and Penguin CelebriducksPenguin duckLone Ranger CelebriduckLoon and Penguin CelebriducksGroucho and Loon Celebriducks
Every president leaves a legacy. It’s a big deal. How will history remember the president? How will history remember his administration? For Lincoln, it was the Civil War and ending slavery.
For Herbert Hoover, it was the Depression.
For FDR, it was The New Deal.
You get the point. So, what will the legacy of the current occupant of the Oval Office be? Will it be that an ignorant, moronic, racist, misogynistic, narcissistic, senile asshole should probably not be the President?
Well, sure, that’s a given. But I think his legacy will be even more than just the obvious. He will be remembered for something far more profound.
The President of The United States gave the mainstream media a great gift. A gift they never could have gotten on their own. Newspapers, cable news, network news — especially network news — finally got something they could never have gotten any other way!
This is the best gift ever!
What was it?
The President made it OK to say shit on national TV. Watching it happen was a wondrous event.
The story was that SCROTUS described countries like Haiti and African countries as “Shitholes” in front of a bunch of Congressmen. The story exploded, like every other stupid thing he does. But this story was different. Something new happened. I was wandering thru the news channels as it happened. And it was awesome. It was adorable. It was like watching a child speak for the first time.
Haiti is a shithole!
Initially, everyone was hesitant. They all didn’t say shithole, they said “The S-word”. And all the chyrons, the lower thirds, all said “S#@THOLES”.
All the cable news anchors fell all over each other saying how much it disturbed them to have to say a word they don’t want to say because it’s so vile. So they said “The S-Word” And they said The “S-Word” as often as they could.
And then, as the evening wore on, I noticed something. The lower thirds suddenly said “SHITHOLE”.
Wow, I thought. And then like a puppy opening his or her eyes for the first time and seeing a new world, it happened.
Wow, this place is a shithole
Suddenly Rachel Maddow and all the others on TV took the leap. “The President said Shithole!” they all declared! And the flood gates opened up.
By the next day everybody was on the ‘shit-bandwagon’. Every headline had some play on the word shit.
There was not a “S##THOLE” anywhere to be found!
I realize at this point that many of you might not understand why I think this is so important. It has to do with the media. I know what I’m talking about because I’ve been in the media for over 40 years.
There are a lot of things the media can and can’t do, or should or shouldn’t do. But there is one thing that they absolutely can’t do. And that is they can’t say dirty words. To be more specific “The Seven Dirty Words”.
The seven dirty words? What’s that? Well, the words are from a George Carlin routine from around 1972.
The bit was about words you can’t say on radio or TV and the words were: “Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits.”
The record was played on a Pacifica radio station in NYC, WBAI. That lead to the FCC fining the station.
And that lead to a Supreme Court case. “FCC vs Pacifica Foundation.” It was a big first amendment case and what came out if it was a decision that the FCC couldn’t limit your first amendment rights, but they were OK banning the seven dirty words on mainstream media.
And that is a big thing if you work in the mainstream media. Many anchors have been fired for accidentally saying “fuck” on the air. It was instant death, you were gone. Period. And you have no idea how media people talk, especially off the air.
I worked for the ABC Radio Network in the early 1970’s, WCBS FM in the late 1970’s and CBS News until today and I always marveled at how some news announcers could go thru an entire newscast hitting the mute button on their mike to yell at someone in between doing the actual newscast.
ANCHOR: In the news today, Vietnam peace talks have stalled, more after this. MUTED ANCHOR: What the fuck??! Who ate my fucking Goddamn yogurt! You all know that’s my motherfucking yogurt! ME: (talking in announcer’s ear) We’re back in 3,2,1, cue. ANCHOR: Moving on to sports, here’s Howard Cosell. MUTED ANCHOR: God fucking damn it! This is the third time this month my motherfucking yogurt is gone! I will find you, you cocksucker and I will FUCK YOU UP!!
I know you think I’m making this up. And I also know for a fact that as Garry is reading this, he is rolling on the floor laughing.
My point is, this is a milestone. On January 11th, the year of our lord 2018, a miraculous thing happened. Trump overturned FCC vs Pacifica. The mainstream media got to say one of theSacred Seven Dirty Words.
Broadcasters are loving it! Now that the precedent is broken, where can we all go next? Oh right — there are still six more dirty words!
So, to sum up this president’s legacy:
A shithead decided to run for president.
A bunch of shitheads decided to vote for him.
A bunch of other shitheads decided that there was no difference between him and the other shithead running for president, so they voted for a third shithead.
And half the country didn’t give enough of a shit to vote at all.
You can’t make this shit up. But at least we can say shit now! Thank God, because the president is doing his damnedest to turn this country into a real shithole.
We are all in such deep shit. On top of everything else, we’re going to need 7 new dirty words.
I never used to watch 24 hour cable news. But after Trump’s election, I started watching The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC at 9 PM weeknights. I love this show because it has a different format and purpose than most other cable news shows.
Rachel Maddow talks directly to you for much of the show. She rarely has more than one guest at a time and there aren’t that many guests throughout her hour. This in itself sets her apart from the other cable news hosts. She sees her job as explaining and digesting key news items of the day for her viewers. She tells her chosen stories of the day with lots of background and perspective, both historical and political. Some hours are totally dedicated to unraveling and illuminating the complexities of just one story. She starts at the beginning and brings you up to date with the complete story, boring details and all.
Sometimes you don’t quite know where Rachel is going on a story and then suddenly, what she’s saying clicks with something in the news today and the light bulb goes off in your head. Rachel will then explain the significance of today’s facts and evaluate the importance of the information. She makes sense of the barrage of information we are being inundated with on a daily basis.
You end your hour with Rachel feeling that you actually have a handle on what’s going on, at least regarding whatever stories she has covered. I find that I often can help friends understand some issue by imparting some of the wisdom I have absorbed from The Rachel Maddow Show. Friends are grateful for their new-found understanding and look at us like we are founts of wisdom. It’s not us. It’s Rachel.
Lately I’ve started watching other shows on MSNBC, my chosen cable channel. I don’t find them as satisfying as Rachel Maddow. But they do serve a more general purpose. They just report on whatever is happening or is in the news at the moment. They often use interviews with multiple people in those little boxes on-screen. The experts and/or pundits explain different versions of the story and offer different opinions about it. Often there is shouting involved.
Other MSNBC show
There’s nothing wrong with that. Very little in this world is simple or clear-cut. There is a place for the two-sided, “he said/she said” news presentation. Most of the print news I read is presented this way too.
For me, there’s something about how Rachel Maddow presents the news which I find very clarifying. After her shows, I feel like I have a better grasp of the material she covered. I don’t always feel that way when I read or watch other sources.
I find so much in the media to be confusing and uncertain, as well as unbelievable. I’m grateful for every bit of clarity and comprehension I can get. I thank Rachel Maddow for giving me an hour a day of sanity in the middle of the information storm in which we live today.
Superstition mountain, Arizona – The mountains rise up out of the earth like monoliths in a science fiction movie. They are to my mind, unreal.These rocks were probably formed from an ancient lava flow. They are entirely different than the rest of the hills and mountains in the area,m clearly formed from a different substance. Photo: Garry ArmstrongThe wild twists of an ironwood treeSuper moon — bright but undefined and framed by branches
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