Tag Archives: Tina Fey

09.10.17
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Stormy Weather

I’m an awful person.

When I heard that right wing radio host gadfly/gazillionaire Rush Limbaugh called the dire warnings about Hurricane Irma part of a liberal conspiracy to further discussion on climate change – and then decided to evacuate his fat ass from his southern Florida home several days later on Thursday – all I could think of was: Keep your fat ass at home.

You know I’m right

Then I heard about right wing author gadfly/gazillionaire Ann Coulter’s tweet a week ago:

And all I could think of then was: Take you and your black Lycra cocktail dress down to Rush’s house in coastal Florida and let’s see how adept the two of you really are at navigating shark and ALLIGATOR infested waters, yard sale Barbie. (Note: Thanks, Tina Fey).

GURL YES

If this weren’t enough, former Growing Pains star and evangelical something or other Kirk Cameron was then quoted as saying this about the back-to-back appearances of both Hurricanes Harvey and Irma:

God “causes [storms] to happen for punishment, or to water His land and demonstrate His faithful love…What this should be doing for all of us is causing us to remember that it’s God who supplies our life, breath and everything else so that you and I would reach out to Him…So think about that, maybe share that with your kids when they ask why this is happening. 

STOP THE MADNESS

I knew there was a reason I didn’t have kids. I’d never be able to explain to them with a straight face that hundreds of people died because the Lord overwatered his flowerbeds.   Nor could I ever be able to explain how I managed to get put in jail for wishing painful venereal warts on a mentally imbalanced former child star on Facebook. (Note: Both he and I, since his pronouncement was in a much read and re-circulated Facebook post).

By the way, did you know that hurricanes are named by something called the World Meteorological Organization and that the names are done in alphabetical order but skip the letters q, u, x, y and z? This accounts for the seeming randomness of Harvey and Irma while causing people like myself too many sleepless nights wondering just what the hell is wrong with the names Zelda, Yanni or Ursula.   (#TooLiberal?)

OK now I’ve gone off the deep end

When I found myself wondering desperately about hurricane names my husband instantly got the answer for me. He’s quick on these things and it’s one of the thousands of the reasons I married him – he either always has or can always find an answer to any question that I ask. This is no small feat, as you can imagine.

Which is why it troubled me when out of nowhere he eventually blew his stack about the right wing doubter responses to hurricanes and their relation to climate change:

What do they need… the Four Horsemen on horseback?

This is another reason I married him. When he blows his stack it is short and often includes some random biblical reference to their jugulars that I could never think of in a million years B.C.

This is love.

I hate to admit that I am now living in a me against them world but I am now living in a me against them world. I mean, there is so little attention to facts and logic I often find myself screaming into my pillow or out towards anyone who will listen. And that’s because most of what’s said is all so provocative and vindictive just for vindictiveness’ sake – fueled by dollops of insurgency, emotion and endless disguised attempts/quests to reign in popularity… said the man who has written a weekly blog for the last five years for no other reason than to… Well, let’s not get off topic.

Truth be known, I have never actively tried to advocate for one side. What one finds as one gets older and has had decades of therapy with at least a few insights, is that the only side one can truly advocate for is one’s personal point of view. Take this little nugget from liberal America which (yes – surprise, surprise) really pissed me off.

Say it ain’t so, chairy!!

Recently, Senator Bernie Sanders went on television (Note: Okay, it was Stephen Colbert’s show) to refute thoughts Hillary Clinton had written about her 2016 campaign for both the Democratic nomination for president and as the Democratic nominee for president.   Deciding for the umpteenth time not to verbally get into the grimy details of a policy debate, Sen. Sanders instead responded to her words with this dismissive retort:

Look, Secretary Clinton ran against the most unpopular candidate in the history of this country—and she lost, and she was upset about that.

Of course, this begs the question that it was Bernie Sanders that first lost to Hillary Clinton. Which most certainly makes him more of a loser than she is because by logic there is only one candidate more unpopular than the winner of the presidency – and that is the person who lost the presidency to him. The candidate Sen. Sanders managed to LOSE TO at the ballot box.

Just move along now please

I don’t know about you but these days I am indeed loaded for bear – liberal, conservative or anywhere in between. And I don’t even know how to shoot a gun. Well, one with bullets anyway.

We’re all finding our ways to cope.

Eurythmics – “Here Comes the Rain Again”

08.20.17
by

Sheets of Privilege

I’ve watched Tina Fey downing a sheet cake while she excoriated Trump and the white supremacists at Charlottesville EIGHT times so far – and counting. It’s the only thing that’s made me laugh in quite a while.

You’ve probably seen her now viral appearance on Thursday night’s summer edition of Saturday Night Live Weekend Update – the one where she called the neo-Nazi man boys “chinless turds,” referred to Ann Coulter as “yard sale Barbie,” and countered Trump and his supporters with “who do you think drove that car into the crowd – Hillary’s emails???”– as whipped cream and all kinds of other carbs came pouring inside and outside of her mouth.

If you haven’t – here. And you’re welcome.

Sheetcaking, as she called it, is one answer to the post-racial right wing racism (and all kinds of other isms) that is now sweeping our country thanks to the campaign, election and reign of our first bull-in-the-china shop Electoral College POTUS – Donald J. Trump – or Donny John – as Ms. Fey more aptly derides him and his cheaply made real estate.

Still, however appealing it feels to gorge oneself on sweets and carbs in response to the upside down view of the world that Donny John and his white supremacist followers espouse – it is by no means the ONLY response.   It is the comedic response of 2017 so far and, as in any great satire, should not be taken as an absolute. It is wish fulfillment and is borne out of anger, frustration and a penchant for mouthy snideness that many of us “ethnic types” prefer.

It is the contemporary version of the fictional Isaac Davis’ cocktail party retort in 1979’s Manhattan after he incredulously mentions that he’s heard Nazis may actually be marching in New Jersey.

We should go down there and get some guys together, get some bricks and baseball bats and really explain things to them.

Even when one guy counters that there is a devastating satirical op-ed piece in the (NY) Times on the subject, Isaac counters:

Well, a satirical piece in the Times is one thing but bricks and baseball bats really gets right to the point.

Let’s be honest. There is no ONE way to battle the lunacy that is now overtaking our nation. On Saturday morning, I woke up to find that two dozen Nazi white guys marched in downtown Boston but 40,000 people showed up in solidarity to counter the hate-filled rants of a crowd that had mostly dispersed by the time they had arrived.

#BostonStrong

That doesn’t account for the tens and thousands more who were home sheetcaking, talking to their neighbors, exchanging kind words with people of other religions, skin colors or sexual persuasions, or perhaps frequenting ethnic businesses and organizations that didn’t share the world view of the Charlottesville chinless turds.

The Electoral College POTUS response to Boston was classic. The first tweet:

A follow-up one several hours later, presumably after a talking to and some human contact:

Still, it begs the question of which protestors he was applauding – the two dozen or the 40,000. Certainly, it couldn’t be ALL of them.

I couldn’t pretend to know what is in Electoral College POTUS’ heart, mostly because I am sure he doesn’t even have o….well, skip it. Let’s not get sidetracked here.

Just have a good scream…. OK I’m good now #dailyrituals

The point is, you can’t believe anything he says in any given moment. Because at any given moment later – meaning five or ten seconds, minutes or hours – he might say exactly the opposite. Sometimes it’s even in the same run-on sentence.

This requires all of us to be especially aware, thoughtful and conscious about our actions as we navigate what the solutions are to our many problems. As a college professor I’ve learned over the years to avoid the word problem and refer to them as challenges. Yet in these tough times and in this particular instance I’d say problems is the more apt term.

21st century compassion

That being said, let’s not pretend that with all of our PROBLEMS we, who were fortunate enough to be born into this country, are not a heck of a lot better off than those born into third-world poverty elsewhere in the world. Even luckier are those of us born here into a higher economic class, or loving families, or, or, or, or…..

You see where I’m going with this.

There is so much chatter right now about PRIVILEGE – who is and who isn’t and how none of us are going to take it anymore. About safe spaces. About real American values and the lack thereof and who has them and who definitely doesn’t.

Yet it always seemed that the one thing we could agree on is that Nazis were bad.

Pretty much sums it up

And yet – Charlottesville showed not even all of us could agree on that. I hear reports from people I know that outside of the coastal cities and big urban areas that people are hoisting Confederate flags, brandishing their weapons to anyone ethnic — or Jewish or gay like me –- just in case they’re thinking that we’re friends or share any kind of values at all. Of course, that could just be what they normally do on a Saturday.   How would I even really know???

Well, certainly choosing to pretend this isn’t happening is not the solution to all this. Nor is Tina urging us to stay home and away from the white supremacist rallies and choose sheetcaking instead. But neither is Isaac Davis’ idea that we all get together to attend the Nazi rallies armed with bricks and baseball bats.   Two of these are extreme answers to extreme behavior that none of us truly knows the solution to. The other one is just plain dumb. I’ll leave it to you to figure out which is which.

Take your time Elmo

As a teacher whose role it often is to reach compromise I would propose that we need to incorporate not only the extremes but EVERYTHING in between. Unlike the multiple choice SAT there is no one correct answer here – except to rule out the dumb choice immediately.

Therefore, if you want to protest at a right wing, Nazi rally – do it. Yes, this is how they thrive and recruit people – by showing all the people like me and you who are against THEM – but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be continually confronted for their hate (and vigorously).

But if as Tina suggests, you want to stay home and instead frequent an ethnic business – e.g. a bakery – then that is also valuable. So is donating money, being kind to a right-leaning friend or neighbor, manning a phone bank for a cause or holding your nose and trying to talk about all of this with a relative who you’ve always loathed – or a colleague who seems to have values opposite of yours.   We have to do them all and we need to do it quickly. And don’t think the thought of this thrills me either. Though I vow to do it if you will.

We can figure out better strategies

This week I heard a former Neo-Nazi named Arno Michaelis, who runs something called the Forgiveness Project and wrote a book about his days of white supremacy in his teens and twenties, say that one of the few things that managed to change him was the kindness he was shown by a lesbian supervisor at work and a black co-worker.

Now I’m not saying kindness and money is THE WAY to fight Nazis. But please can we refrain from the now empty post liberal phrase this is privilege speaking when one dares to suggest anything else except the method you’re arguing for? We need it ALL – especially the comedy of Tina Fey.

The only act of privilege is sitting it out entirely.

Elvis Costello & The Attractions – Peace, Love and Understanding