If reporters and editors don't stand up en masse against Trump's bullying of The Associated Press, there will likely be no end to his efforts to control them
Zelensky is a dictator, Ukraine started the was with plucky litte Russia, and trump is a King. AP must note these down and refer to the two men and the event correctly, starting today. Head of the Ministry of Truth.
Why do you think I call the current White House press secretary Josefa Goebbels. She is just like the man she obviously admires, Nazi Minister of Propaganda, Josef Goebbels, a man so disgustingly vile, that he & his equally rotten wife poisoned all six of their young children in the Fuhrer Bunker at the beginning of May 1945, "because they didn't want them to grow up in a non-Nazi world".
Garry, if interested, read up on the fall of Stalingrad. Hitler was extremely pissed off that that the commanding offercers surrendered to the Russians rather than fight to the death. He also wanted the commanders to shoot themselves. He promoted them with the expectation that they would understand what they were supposed to do. Unfortunately they were averse to offing themselves and surrendered. It was up to Goebbels to figure out how to announce it to the nation and put in the best light. Like Midway, it was considered a major turning point in the war and the start of Hitler's downfall though it would take another several years because no one in Germany had the nerve to tell Der Fuhrer that it was over.
Hitler promoted the commander at Stalingrad Pauli’s to field marshal as no German field marshal had ever surrendered before. Pauli’s was the of all of them surrendering at the end of the war.
The joke is that there is no joke. Even though a joke is set up to be expected, it does not arrive, subverting expectation and thereby being funny (to some).
It’s like “A priest, a minister, and a rabbi walked into a bar. They each had a drink and then they went home.” That said, I don’t find these anti-jokes to be very funny
To continue with my example, "A priest, a minister, and a rabbi walked into a bar. One said something that asserted his faith principles and the two others responded in a way that humorously reminded everyone how their principles differ. They all had a good laugh."
Here I think the joke is that something jokeworthy and amusing evidently transpired, but the joke teller doesn't want to tell you what it was. As if, in my example with the dad on the freeway, the joke went, "and then the father said something wry that indicated he was perhaps the one driving the wrong way."
You're trying too hard. There's nothing absurd about it ("What is the difference between a duck? One of its legs is both the same "). There's nothing in the set-up that points to any possibility humor except of the utterly unfunny school that views women as dummies who are men's playthings. Worse, so far as any effective joke is concerned, it's poorly worded: a dud well before the non-punchline is ever reached. It simply is nowhere near the fine example of the older driver confronted by hundreds of cars going the wrong way.
Genre: yes. "Joke": only archaically, at least in the case of this genre. Funny ever: not so much when sober and not flooded with adolescent hormones (all varieties), but then the same applies to a high percentage of the humor out there. Given all that, it would have been funnier if better written.
I enjoyed the content on comedy, which is something I appreciate. I remember thinking the "Pat" bit on SNL as being funny, but like many things on SNL they overdid it on one joke. I agree with Julia Sweeney that the humor was based on people who were uncertain about Pat's gender rather than how Pat chose to present herself. Still, the bit has not aged well. I think Martin Short is a comedic genius. I love him in Only Murderers in the Building and have been a fan since his days at SCTV. Not all of his stuff has aged well. He had a bit on SNL where his character had an intellectual disability and he did synchronized swimming with the hope of it becoming an olympic event. It is too bad, because he executed the bit very well, but it is so insensitive. Still, he is great and it is inspiring to see him still going strong when he is almost 75.
I saw Martin Short appear with Steve Martin a couple years ago. If you get a chance to see them perform don’t miss it. One joke: Short to Martin: What would you do if you weren’t a talented comedian? Martin to Short: Probably what you’re doing.
There were dozens of sketches that wouldn't be done today. And they were still funny at that time. We live, we grow. Another one that comes to mind is the subway speaker announcer that you can't understand. The joke was when they cut to inside where the workers were, they all had speech impediments. Absolutely wouldn't be done today.
I agree. Sometimes I look for opposing views just so someone can inform me of something I didn’t think about. But I fear we are no longer as open-minded or tolerant as we used to be. In one respect, many of us are more accepting of differences than we used to be. An unfortunate side effect is that comedy is hard. A comedian can say what he/she wants about everyday occurrences or about their own kind. Saying something about a different ethnic group may not be seen as funny.
Part II: The duck goes back to the pharmacy and asks for a package of condoms. The pharmacist says, "I know, put it on your bill?" The duck replies, "No, I'm not that kind of duck."
An honest question regarding the refusal of some to use ‘Gulf of America’. How would it be received if a news organization insisted on calling DuSable LSD; called Willis Tower Sears; called Rate Field Sox Park?
Apples to chainsaw comparison here. The Sox and Sears organizations sold the naming rights, because capitalism and free markets; two things that give most conservatives a woody.
DuSable was legally changed by the owners aka the City of Chicago.
Imagine if Chicago decided to rename some famous street in New York City.
Reading your comment just reminded me that Burger Boy just announced he would stop congestion tolls in Manhattan. Oh really? Under what authority? That’s a New York issue- whether or not anyone agrees with it.
Sears never sold the naming rights. Sears sold the building to Vornado Real Estate & then that little creep Richie Daley gave the Willis Company of London $15 million to move its US office to Chicago & Vornado sold the rights to Willis for amazingly the same amount, $15 million! So Chicago taxpayers paid for that idiotic name change!
That's what I call all three, I refuse to change their names & as far as I'm concerned, it's still the Northwestern Ry commuter lines that terminate at Madison & Canal at Northwestern Station!
Well we know how those things were received because we have seen it. As I have said before, people only care because it is a recent change. At some point people will have forgotten their original names.
It will be interesting to see if Gulf of America sticks. Google maps shows it by the new name.
I doubt there would be serious blowback against a news organization that used "Lake Shore Drive," but it would have been interesting had the change been from "Lake Shore Drive" to "DuSable Drive." I think you'd then get quite a bit of resistance from the public. Chicago had the authority to vote to rename LSD to DLSD (or JBPDLSD to be perfectly accurate) just as Trump had the authority to rename Denali. He does NOT have the authority to rename the Gulf of Mexico.
Not an honest question! - Not a relevant comparison at all. -- There is not and never will be a Gulf of America. It would make just as much sense to call it the Gulf of Cuba. Mainstream press needs to get off of AF1 until AP is allowed on. Maybe have an AI Robot hold a mike in the White House briefing room.
Regarding Ukraine starting the war, that reminds me of when as a kid I’d come home from school crying that a bully beat me up, and mom would always ask, “what did you do”? It’s like we’re back in the day of blaming women for the way they dress that must have made them a sexual victim.
It's important to point out that the change Eric recommends to switch from the finger pistol to the jerk-off motion excludes 50% of the public. How will they understand and feel the same ennui at the rantings of the person in the article? Perhaps this was the motivation for the choice of the finger pistol.
RE: Gulf of Mexico - - - - Remember Kellyanne Conway's statement that "We have alternative facts." That's been Trump's MO his entire life, the whole thing fake, except that he has somehow managed to accumulate a few hundred million in wealth.
Also note #47's screaming about late delivery of the new 747s for use as Air Force One. He only wants to paint the planes in those garish colors that makes him appear like a King
They're late because he insisted the Air Force buy two already completed but never delivered 747s, which must be totally torn apart inside to make it safe for AF1, instead of ordering two new 747s from Boeing which would've been custom built for the purpose. That pinhead thought he was saving money!
I view the Orange Menace's claim to wealth to be another alternative fact! -- And why or why have the Musk Minions NOT released his tax returns. The ones he promised us years and years ago. Hmmmm...
I might have missed it, but I don’t remember seeing your take on the SNL 50th. They had a joke about President Ford, who as you recall was quoted on the front page of a New York paper saying “Ford to New York: Drop Dead”
They held up a sign that said “New York to Ford: Who’s Dead Now?”
They had an ‘in memoriam’ for all the skits and characters that did not age well, showing Belushi as Samurai and Chase/Prior word association (with n word bleeped)
I thought handling it that way was an extraordinarily creative and excellent way to acknowledge that humor has changed. They certainly couldn't ignore them as many were very memorable nor dismiss them as "youthful indiscretions." Other institutions and individuals with embarrassing pasts don't get the leeway SNL does.
The Simpsons wielded similar finesse on the episode “No Good Read Goes Unpunished” when, after thirty years on the air, the character of Apu suddenly was declared toxic.
I don’t know that it hasn’t aged well. I never thought the skit was that funny to begin with, but it seems that the whole gag is predicated on the idea that one particular word crosses a line, cancels the interplay of the word association game, and provokes justifiable violence by the Pryor character. Since it seems we’ve become ever more sensitive over the last fifty years, adopting the somewhat childish line of thought that a single word can retain such power that it cannot even be allowed to be uttered (like “Jehovah” in the Old Testament as Dick Cavett once pointed out) I think that the skit has aged and ripened perfectly (which is not necessarily a compliment on our state of culture). To the point, please note that while the unspeakable word was allowed to be broadcast fifty years ago, it now must be bleeped. That fact alone kind of reinforces the whole thrust of the joke.
"Variety: “ Julia Sweeney Defends SNL's Pat.” She contends the jokes in those skits were on the people who couldn’t tell her character’s gender. But I don’t know about that."
That's 30-35 years ago. Can't we not hold yesterday's things to today's standards. I laughed at Rickles in the 70's and probably said things I shouldn't have in the 60's. But criticizing this kind of stuff causes more people to lean into it rather than grow from it.
Having dropped cable in 2008, my family loves that Bulls and Blackhawks games are now free to watch on broadcast TV. A basic flat panel antenna (about $10) works great in the Chicago area - no need for an aerial on the roof. Even before streaming we never lacked for things to watch on broadcast TV.
So true. The notion that cable is worth paying extra for because of its “premium” content is a ship that, for the most part, sailed a long time ago. Almost all of the content on cable is pure trash, rife with commercials, and below the quality level of much of broadcast TV. And as a mock NBC executive said on an old “Late Night With David Letterman” gag, TV should be free, the way nature intended it.
That said, I do still pay for cable just for Turner Classic Movies, although I’ve read that they’re in trouble, so I’m enjoying it in its expertly presented, commercial free format while I still can.
And pound for pound, the best programming in all of TV is still PBS, gloriously commercial free (or at least subtly placed), and with News Hour, BBC, Chicago Tonight, Washington Week in Review, etc., the best news programming in all of television, by far.
The only thing I miss from cable is Big 10 Network to watch my beloved Spartans (GO GREEN!). But sports bars exist when a game is only on BTN. Many cable channels can be watched for free on Roku, which is nice. But no TCM, no BTN, only some ESPN live games.
Agree with Melinda on the desirability of access to sports. Disagree strongly with her on the Spartans. Go Blue! This will be settled Friday night on the hardwood.
Yeah, Warner Brothers TRIED to cut TCM. BUT the backlash from Hollywood made them stop. Comcast / Xfinity put TCM and ESPN in a package deal - the oddest couple I can think of. So we pay for that package because I won't give up TCM no matter what.
I don't often take advantage of the links to outside articles and videos, but I was riveted by the headline for the PoliticsGirl video as it is exactly what I have been saying to myself for four weeks.
I get that there is a strategy to avoid the B'rer Rabbit tarpit of the multiplicity of astonishing things done just to get a rise. I get that 49% of Americans made a choice that we are obligated to respect at face value. And I also get that most Americans on both sides of the aisle think that all of this is just Washington bullshit and they won't care until 2028 when they will take stock of where we are and respond accordingly.
But it is absolutely time for a coordinated response to begin. The right mix of leadership will start to summon the electorate to the table. It needs simple examples from history to illustrate the deviance. It needs mea culpas from former leaders that they created the situation that allowed this to happen. It needs a populist economic statement that recognizes that the average worker has been screwed for years by many of the activities that are now going into overdrive as well as by the mistakes of Democratic leaders and that includes realistic change that the average Joe can follow. And it unfortunately needs to openly back burner some of the trigger social issues that open the door to casual bigoted voters to embrace authoritarianism because they think we have gone too far.
And Eric, although I know you are not a church person from your writings, a key component of this leadership group has to be Christian church leaders who explain the perversion of Christian beliefs now being offered in the name of God by the conservative church. The lack of leadership from the mainline Christian church is astounding to me. The Pope has finally made a statement in this regard, but then he went into the hospital and so that was lost in the news. I have been concerned about this since the emergence of the Moral Majority and the TV preacher wave in the 1980's. This has been predictable because the liberal church has been dying for years due to the inability to stand for anything concrete as they move away from the rule based faith of a judgmental God to the more fundamental theory that God is Love. Humans don't respond well to uncertainty, and a rule based approach gives them something to lean against when things don't make sense. But this is an opportunity for the liberal church to lean into something hard - the destruction of the separation of Church and State will destroy denominations that are not "with the program". The answer here is not to bury all religion as a fairy tale, but for the honest differences between faith traditions to be clearly articulated.
Without leaders, the resistance will be weak and diffused. There is risk involved for all of them to be persecuted, but if the arguments are grounded in the Constitution in the legal world and in morality in the religious world, the motivation will be there to disrupt this. All we need are 5 - 10 Republicans to be roused from their belief that the ends justify the means and we can knock some of these trains off the track.
I'm not typically a fan of such videos but must agree she's making a REALLY good point. I mean -- where is Barack Obama? And the Clintons? And everyone else she mentions?? Their collective voice could have a powerful impact but it's been crickets. It doesn't matter that Trump et al will of course dismiss them as socialist librals. They need to get Bush and all reasonable Republicans to start speaking up. Loudly and consistently.
It's continually pointed out that we all accept having to make sacrifices in this battle for our country. We lowly commoners are sharing things like going cold turkey on Amazon shopping in favor of supportive businesses, spending 15 mins a day calling your reps (at all levels, local to federal) to praise for good actions and complain about lack of action, organizing protests, and figuring out what can be done as mere citizens. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger have made enormous sacrifices and they continue to speak out. What "sacrifices" are our previous leaders making in their cushy retirements? I'm starting to get really pissed they're not doing more.
I think you're right. They've given up independence and fourth estate duty long before the election for the sake of financial viability and out of fear of reprisal.
Fun PS! Enjoyed doing the food survey. Some further suggestions:
Why not do a beverage survey as well?
For example : 1. Milk 2. Tea 3. Coffee 4. Root Beer 5. Dr. Pepper 6. Coke 7. Gatorade/ Sports Drink 8.Bottled Water 9. Club Soda and 10. Other
Other would be something not listed but you drink regularly. For example Kefir, now I have drunk snake blood, but that is cheating as I drank it once. Tastes a lot like human blood…and how do I know that? Well I have tasted my own blood a number of times, all involuntarily. I do wonder how many people have tasted their own blood. As for other people’s blood, Eric think you may put the negatory on that, getting kinky, scary and inappropriate.
Oh yeah, just for the record, I have never tasted another person’s blood, nor do I want to.
The news from King Donald is worse than Eric related. After blasting Zelensky again with lies, he declared himself king. Will we be jailed if we don’t address him as “sire” or “your majesty”? EZ commented on the cutting. It’s not that hard explain. He is cutting any agency that he and his billionaire buddies have a gripe against or can’t make anyone money. Check the list. The FBI that he’s accused of going after him. Any agency that investigates or protects the public. Inspector generals that help root out government fraud. Parks and forestry workers can’t make him any money. National Institute of Health which helps find causes of disease. The list goes on. I’m still waiting for the cuts in the commerce and treasury departments. How about the space force when we need be more concerned with what’s happening on this planet’s surface? Don’t even get me started on USAID. If funding Hamas was the problem, why not just cut funding for Hamas instead of slashing the entire program which did good things all over the world? Burger Boy has done more than throw the baby out with the bath water. He’s thrown out the entire basin because he he didn’t approve the color. There is something else going on here. EZ wants the media to stand up against him. I wouldn’t hold my breath. I read a story yesterday that news organizations are starting to cringe at the thought of further retaliation by Burger Boy. The Washington Post honchos have stopped editorials against him. Sorry EZ- but I don’t know that your fraternal brothers are going to do a damn thing except for those like you that opted out. Will their bosses,cringing in fear, let them?
We never funded Hamas, that moron confused the condoms we sent to a town in Mozambique to prevent the spread of AIDS there, also named Gaza, with the Gaza Strip.
I only mentioned it because it is a standard MAGA complaint including one here in this forum who claimed the money was used to build Hamas tunnels. I have no idea how he knew that. But even if true, wouldn’t it have been a lot simpler just to tell the program not to fund Hamas rather than slash the entire program?
But selectively cutting programs would not further the real goal - getting rid of anything that has even a whiff of a humanitarian purpose. They are refocusing the US government away from helping anyone, anywhere, in the name of reducing taxes for the wealthy. They want to isolate us from the world (except Russia?) and they are doing a bang-up job of it thus far.
Exactly! The goal seems to be to strip away any semblance of America being a force for good, leaving only the menacing image of a superpower with enough war machinery to destroy the world several times over.
I said this many years ago. Even before the horrible invention called MAGA, there were many that wanted to retreat from our supposed policing the entire world. We tried isolation before both World War I and World War II. How did that work out? Burger Boy sells it by appealing to to the wallets of conservatives. They are not smart enough to realize the costs of actually doing it.
Hi Laurence - Here is a link to a news report on a USAID grant that funded a cement factory in Gaza in 2916 - and to a firm with ties to Hamas. (If you Google the subject, there are numerous reports on this.) It took a lot of cement to construct those terror tunnels.
Hey Mr Nite Owl - The USAID has done much good in the world for humanitarian causes in programs for food assistance, healthcare, clean water, etc. that should and likely will continue in one form or another. However, the USAID current budget of $43 BILLION of our tax dollars critically needs a great deal of scrutiny and review.
In addition to funding the concrete plant in Gaza undoubtedly used for the Hamas terrorist tunnels, there are many, many inappropriate uses of taxpayer dollars for things such as:
2022 Grant to Centro Ecuatoriano Norte Americano for drag shows in Ecuador
2024 $500,000 Grant to Humanists International to promote atheism in Nepal and Asia
$70,000 for an Irish musical on DEI
$47,000 for a transgender opera in Columbia
$6 MILLION to "transform digital spaces to reflect feminist democratic principles"
$2 MILLION for "gender change and LGBT advocacy in Guatemala
$20 MILLION for a new Sesame Street show in Iraq
$1.5 MILLION to "promote LGBT advocacy" in Jamaica
$32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru
All these and many more such expenditures are things that the overwhelming majority of Americans would not want our tax dollars used for.
This report from the US Inspector General's office detailing an alarming lack of accountability by UN agencies and foreign NGO's in the administration of USAID grants mandates that this massive flow of our tax dollars be paused in it's entirety until there is a thorough review and much better accountability.
Fine. Now address other issues like declaring himself king and illegal firings. How about trying to dislodge Gazans and lying about Zelenskyy and who started the war? And if you even try to justify it by telling me Putin saw them as a threat for joining NATO, you are on my ignore list. Hitler used the same kind of lies to justify attacking Poland.
Exactly. He's trying, on the face of it, to run the government like a business (here we come bankruptcy), but of course that is the exact opposite of what government should be. On a smaller scale, imagine if police, fire or park departments were for-profit concerns. Only the rich would have their property and safety protected or have access to open spaces. And I'm guessing that's exactly what his royal fuhrer wants. Now extend that to healthcare, roads, schools, product safety and the million other things our taxes are supposed to pay for. The man is the most dangerous, deranged piece of evil I've seen in my lifetime.
Back when Keith Olbermann was still on MSNBC, he aired a story about a town in Tennessee where you had to pay an annual subscription fee for fire protection - the story centered around a man whose house burned down while the fire department stood back and watched, because he hadn't paid the fee. They only showed up when the fire spread to a neighbor's house that had paid.
Antiques Roadshow used to have people bring in plaques that had been on old 18th Century homes that showed you paid for fire protection.
Chicago also once had a company, even in the early 20th Century, that went to fires at businesses that paid them & they covered up things inside a building if there was a fire to protect that equipment from the water & flames.
Good morning everyone. Have a great Thursday!
Every Thursday with a new Picayune Sentinel is a great Thursday!
amen to that, david!
Zelensky is a dictator, Ukraine started the was with plucky litte Russia, and trump is a King. AP must note these down and refer to the two men and the event correctly, starting today. Head of the Ministry of Truth.
Why do you think I call the current White House press secretary Josefa Goebbels. She is just like the man she obviously admires, Nazi Minister of Propaganda, Josef Goebbels, a man so disgustingly vile, that he & his equally rotten wife poisoned all six of their young children in the Fuhrer Bunker at the beginning of May 1945, "because they didn't want them to grow up in a non-Nazi world".
And the inventor of the Big Lie, the mantle of which has passed to Agent Orange and the MAGA dupes.
Garry, if interested, read up on the fall of Stalingrad. Hitler was extremely pissed off that that the commanding offercers surrendered to the Russians rather than fight to the death. He also wanted the commanders to shoot themselves. He promoted them with the expectation that they would understand what they were supposed to do. Unfortunately they were averse to offing themselves and surrendered. It was up to Goebbels to figure out how to announce it to the nation and put in the best light. Like Midway, it was considered a major turning point in the war and the start of Hitler's downfall though it would take another several years because no one in Germany had the nerve to tell Der Fuhrer that it was over.
Hitler promoted the commander at Stalingrad Pauli’s to field marshal as no German field marshal had ever surrendered before. Pauli’s was the of all of them surrendering at the end of the war.
Still don’t get the island joke.
The joke is that there is no joke. Even though a joke is set up to be expected, it does not arrive, subverting expectation and thereby being funny (to some).
It’s like “A priest, a minister, and a rabbi walked into a bar. They each had a drink and then they went home.” That said, I don’t find these anti-jokes to be very funny
To continue with my example, "A priest, a minister, and a rabbi walked into a bar. One said something that asserted his faith principles and the two others responded in a way that humorously reminded everyone how their principles differ. They all had a good laugh."
Still maybe not funny to you, but in the spirit.
Still not funny to me.
Here I think the joke is that something jokeworthy and amusing evidently transpired, but the joke teller doesn't want to tell you what it was. As if, in my example with the dad on the freeway, the joke went, "and then the father said something wry that indicated he was perhaps the one driving the wrong way."
You're trying too hard. There's nothing absurd about it ("What is the difference between a duck? One of its legs is both the same "). There's nothing in the set-up that points to any possibility humor except of the utterly unfunny school that views women as dummies who are men's playthings. Worse, so far as any effective joke is concerned, it's poorly worded: a dud well before the non-punchline is ever reached. It simply is nowhere near the fine example of the older driver confronted by hundreds of cars going the wrong way.
For better or worse, there is a genre of “dumb blonde” jokes, and so the set up on the island joke points the way toward a dumb blonde punchline.
Genre: yes. "Joke": only archaically, at least in the case of this genre. Funny ever: not so much when sober and not flooded with adolescent hormones (all varieties), but then the same applies to a high percentage of the humor out there. Given all that, it would have been funnier if better written.
For the record, blonde jokes have never been funny. And there is a complete lack of blond jokes. Which underlines the point.
Google "blond joke", there are thousands of them!
Me neither
I enjoyed the content on comedy, which is something I appreciate. I remember thinking the "Pat" bit on SNL as being funny, but like many things on SNL they overdid it on one joke. I agree with Julia Sweeney that the humor was based on people who were uncertain about Pat's gender rather than how Pat chose to present herself. Still, the bit has not aged well. I think Martin Short is a comedic genius. I love him in Only Murderers in the Building and have been a fan since his days at SCTV. Not all of his stuff has aged well. He had a bit on SNL where his character had an intellectual disability and he did synchronized swimming with the hope of it becoming an olympic event. It is too bad, because he executed the bit very well, but it is so insensitive. Still, he is great and it is inspiring to see him still going strong when he is almost 75.
I saw Martin Short appear with Steve Martin a couple years ago. If you get a chance to see them perform don’t miss it. One joke: Short to Martin: What would you do if you weren’t a talented comedian? Martin to Short: Probably what you’re doing.
There were dozens of sketches that wouldn't be done today. And they were still funny at that time. We live, we grow. Another one that comes to mind is the subway speaker announcer that you can't understand. The joke was when they cut to inside where the workers were, they all had speech impediments. Absolutely wouldn't be done today.
They'd never get away with the Claudine Longet Memorial Ski Tournament or what Chevy Chase said on Update when Professor Backwards was murdered!
But both were hysterically funny & still are.
Question. Could Don Rickles still be successful today?
I don’t think so. Different times, different people, different culture.
I agree. Sometimes I look for opposing views just so someone can inform me of something I didn’t think about. But I fear we are no longer as open-minded or tolerant as we used to be. In one respect, many of us are more accepting of differences than we used to be. An unfortunate side effect is that comedy is hard. A comedian can say what he/she wants about everyday occurrences or about their own kind. Saying something about a different ethnic group may not be seen as funny.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AEvLap_49gk
Part II: The duck goes back to the pharmacy and asks for a package of condoms. The pharmacist says, "I know, put it on your bill?" The duck replies, "No, I'm not that kind of duck."
An honest question regarding the refusal of some to use ‘Gulf of America’. How would it be received if a news organization insisted on calling DuSable LSD; called Willis Tower Sears; called Rate Field Sox Park?
Apples to chainsaw comparison here. The Sox and Sears organizations sold the naming rights, because capitalism and free markets; two things that give most conservatives a woody.
DuSable was legally changed by the owners aka the City of Chicago.
Imagine if Chicago decided to rename some famous street in New York City.
Reading your comment just reminded me that Burger Boy just announced he would stop congestion tolls in Manhattan. Oh really? Under what authority? That’s a New York issue- whether or not anyone agrees with it.
In another comment thread someone said that the Feds funded a lot of the highways and roads throughout the area so they might have some influence.
Similar to when they "persuaded" states to enact the 55 mph speed limit and the 21-year-old drinking age. 🤷♂️
Sears never sold the naming rights. Sears sold the building to Vornado Real Estate & then that little creep Richie Daley gave the Willis Company of London $15 million to move its US office to Chicago & Vornado sold the rights to Willis for amazingly the same amount, $15 million! So Chicago taxpayers paid for that idiotic name change!
That's what I call all three, I refuse to change their names & as far as I'm concerned, it's still the Northwestern Ry commuter lines that terminate at Madison & Canal at Northwestern Station!
Well we know how those things were received because we have seen it. As I have said before, people only care because it is a recent change. At some point people will have forgotten their original names.
It will be interesting to see if Gulf of America sticks. Google maps shows it by the new name.
I think that is just if you access within the USA. In the rest of the world it is still the correct name.
In the US it shows as "Gulf of America." In Mexico it shows as "Gulf of Mexico." Everywhere else it shows "Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)."
Google and the rest of the tech billionaire ass kissers would call New "Trumpworld" is the Grifter in Chief decreed it.
I don’t think that would result in their being banned from Mayoral press conferences.
I agree. That pettiness is dumb,IMO.
I doubt there would be serious blowback against a news organization that used "Lake Shore Drive," but it would have been interesting had the change been from "Lake Shore Drive" to "DuSable Drive." I think you'd then get quite a bit of resistance from the public. Chicago had the authority to vote to rename LSD to DLSD (or JBPDLSD to be perfectly accurate) just as Trump had the authority to rename Denali. He does NOT have the authority to rename the Gulf of Mexico.
Except the people of Alaska are furious that he renamed Denali!
Not an honest question! - Not a relevant comparison at all. -- There is not and never will be a Gulf of America. It would make just as much sense to call it the Gulf of Cuba. Mainstream press needs to get off of AF1 until AP is allowed on. Maybe have an AI Robot hold a mike in the White House briefing room.
I remember the major networks banding together when Obama tried to shut out Fox News from an interview. How times have changed…
Rate Field might sounds silly. But it still beats The Cell, which resulted from the famous incident involving drunk fans and Kansas City Royals fans.
Regarding Ukraine starting the war, that reminds me of when as a kid I’d come home from school crying that a bully beat me up, and mom would always ask, “what did you do”? It’s like we’re back in the day of blaming women for the way they dress that must have made them a sexual victim.
We are living in the upside-down.
It's important to point out that the change Eric recommends to switch from the finger pistol to the jerk-off motion excludes 50% of the public. How will they understand and feel the same ennui at the rantings of the person in the article? Perhaps this was the motivation for the choice of the finger pistol.
Anti-joke?
I know many women who use the jerkoff motion derisively. But I can ask -- is it too gendered for general use?
I really was trying to overstate the point to be funny.
The jerkoff motion was in use in my largely female profession. Maybe by 30% of the women.
RE: Gulf of Mexico - - - - Remember Kellyanne Conway's statement that "We have alternative facts." That's been Trump's MO his entire life, the whole thing fake, except that he has somehow managed to accumulate a few hundred million in wealth.
Also note #47's screaming about late delivery of the new 747s for use as Air Force One. He only wants to paint the planes in those garish colors that makes him appear like a King
They're late because he insisted the Air Force buy two already completed but never delivered 747s, which must be totally torn apart inside to make it safe for AF1, instead of ordering two new 747s from Boeing which would've been custom built for the purpose. That pinhead thought he was saving money!
But does he really have that wealth? Why does he hide his tax returns? Perhaps that is another myth he propagates? Seems more the Bankruptcy Champ.
He made $56 million from his trumpcoin scam, chump change wen it comes AF1s
No one ever knows how wealthy rich people are. How much of it is speculative or doesn't include debt?
I view the Orange Menace's claim to wealth to be another alternative fact! -- And why or why have the Musk Minions NOT released his tax returns. The ones he promised us years and years ago. Hmmmm...
I might have missed it, but I don’t remember seeing your take on the SNL 50th. They had a joke about President Ford, who as you recall was quoted on the front page of a New York paper saying “Ford to New York: Drop Dead”
They held up a sign that said “New York to Ford: Who’s Dead Now?”
I haven't finished watching the 50th yet! DVR backlog.
They had an ‘in memoriam’ for all the skits and characters that did not age well, showing Belushi as Samurai and Chase/Prior word association (with n word bleeped)
I thought handling it that way was an extraordinarily creative and excellent way to acknowledge that humor has changed. They certainly couldn't ignore them as many were very memorable nor dismiss them as "youthful indiscretions." Other institutions and individuals with embarrassing pasts don't get the leeway SNL does.
The Simpsons wielded similar finesse on the episode “No Good Read Goes Unpunished” when, after thirty years on the air, the character of Apu suddenly was declared toxic.
The Chevy Chase/Richard Pryor word association skit is one of my all-time favorites from SNL, but it definitely hasn't aged well in 50 years.
I don’t know that it hasn’t aged well. I never thought the skit was that funny to begin with, but it seems that the whole gag is predicated on the idea that one particular word crosses a line, cancels the interplay of the word association game, and provokes justifiable violence by the Pryor character. Since it seems we’ve become ever more sensitive over the last fifty years, adopting the somewhat childish line of thought that a single word can retain such power that it cannot even be allowed to be uttered (like “Jehovah” in the Old Testament as Dick Cavett once pointed out) I think that the skit has aged and ripened perfectly (which is not necessarily a compliment on our state of culture). To the point, please note that while the unspeakable word was allowed to be broadcast fifty years ago, it now must be bleeped. That fact alone kind of reinforces the whole thrust of the joke.
"Variety: “ Julia Sweeney Defends SNL's Pat.” She contends the jokes in those skits were on the people who couldn’t tell her character’s gender. But I don’t know about that."
That's 30-35 years ago. Can't we not hold yesterday's things to today's standards. I laughed at Rickles in the 70's and probably said things I shouldn't have in the 60's. But criticizing this kind of stuff causes more people to lean into it rather than grow from it.
Having dropped cable in 2008, my family loves that Bulls and Blackhawks games are now free to watch on broadcast TV. A basic flat panel antenna (about $10) works great in the Chicago area - no need for an aerial on the roof. Even before streaming we never lacked for things to watch on broadcast TV.
So true. The notion that cable is worth paying extra for because of its “premium” content is a ship that, for the most part, sailed a long time ago. Almost all of the content on cable is pure trash, rife with commercials, and below the quality level of much of broadcast TV. And as a mock NBC executive said on an old “Late Night With David Letterman” gag, TV should be free, the way nature intended it.
That said, I do still pay for cable just for Turner Classic Movies, although I’ve read that they’re in trouble, so I’m enjoying it in its expertly presented, commercial free format while I still can.
And pound for pound, the best programming in all of TV is still PBS, gloriously commercial free (or at least subtly placed), and with News Hour, BBC, Chicago Tonight, Washington Week in Review, etc., the best news programming in all of television, by far.
The only thing I miss from cable is Big 10 Network to watch my beloved Spartans (GO GREEN!). But sports bars exist when a game is only on BTN. Many cable channels can be watched for free on Roku, which is nice. But no TCM, no BTN, only some ESPN live games.
Agree with Melinda on the desirability of access to sports. Disagree strongly with her on the Spartans. Go Blue! This will be settled Friday night on the hardwood.
Yeah, Warner Brothers TRIED to cut TCM. BUT the backlash from Hollywood made them stop. Comcast / Xfinity put TCM and ESPN in a package deal - the oddest couple I can think of. So we pay for that package because I won't give up TCM no matter what.
Yeah pretty much. It’s a rip off, but TCM is great, and it won’t be around forever, so I pay.
I don't often take advantage of the links to outside articles and videos, but I was riveted by the headline for the PoliticsGirl video as it is exactly what I have been saying to myself for four weeks.
I get that there is a strategy to avoid the B'rer Rabbit tarpit of the multiplicity of astonishing things done just to get a rise. I get that 49% of Americans made a choice that we are obligated to respect at face value. And I also get that most Americans on both sides of the aisle think that all of this is just Washington bullshit and they won't care until 2028 when they will take stock of where we are and respond accordingly.
But it is absolutely time for a coordinated response to begin. The right mix of leadership will start to summon the electorate to the table. It needs simple examples from history to illustrate the deviance. It needs mea culpas from former leaders that they created the situation that allowed this to happen. It needs a populist economic statement that recognizes that the average worker has been screwed for years by many of the activities that are now going into overdrive as well as by the mistakes of Democratic leaders and that includes realistic change that the average Joe can follow. And it unfortunately needs to openly back burner some of the trigger social issues that open the door to casual bigoted voters to embrace authoritarianism because they think we have gone too far.
And Eric, although I know you are not a church person from your writings, a key component of this leadership group has to be Christian church leaders who explain the perversion of Christian beliefs now being offered in the name of God by the conservative church. The lack of leadership from the mainline Christian church is astounding to me. The Pope has finally made a statement in this regard, but then he went into the hospital and so that was lost in the news. I have been concerned about this since the emergence of the Moral Majority and the TV preacher wave in the 1980's. This has been predictable because the liberal church has been dying for years due to the inability to stand for anything concrete as they move away from the rule based faith of a judgmental God to the more fundamental theory that God is Love. Humans don't respond well to uncertainty, and a rule based approach gives them something to lean against when things don't make sense. But this is an opportunity for the liberal church to lean into something hard - the destruction of the separation of Church and State will destroy denominations that are not "with the program". The answer here is not to bury all religion as a fairy tale, but for the honest differences between faith traditions to be clearly articulated.
Without leaders, the resistance will be weak and diffused. There is risk involved for all of them to be persecuted, but if the arguments are grounded in the Constitution in the legal world and in morality in the religious world, the motivation will be there to disrupt this. All we need are 5 - 10 Republicans to be roused from their belief that the ends justify the means and we can knock some of these trains off the track.
I'm not typically a fan of such videos but must agree she's making a REALLY good point. I mean -- where is Barack Obama? And the Clintons? And everyone else she mentions?? Their collective voice could have a powerful impact but it's been crickets. It doesn't matter that Trump et al will of course dismiss them as socialist librals. They need to get Bush and all reasonable Republicans to start speaking up. Loudly and consistently.
It's continually pointed out that we all accept having to make sacrifices in this battle for our country. We lowly commoners are sharing things like going cold turkey on Amazon shopping in favor of supportive businesses, spending 15 mins a day calling your reps (at all levels, local to federal) to praise for good actions and complain about lack of action, organizing protests, and figuring out what can be done as mere citizens. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger have made enormous sacrifices and they continue to speak out. What "sacrifices" are our previous leaders making in their cushy retirements? I'm starting to get really pissed they're not doing more.
Well, reporters and editors can't stand up en masse because they're too busy kissing Trump's ass.
The claims of access are BS.
I think you're right. They've given up independence and fourth estate duty long before the election for the sake of financial viability and out of fear of reprisal.
Fun PS! Enjoyed doing the food survey. Some further suggestions:
Why not do a beverage survey as well?
For example : 1. Milk 2. Tea 3. Coffee 4. Root Beer 5. Dr. Pepper 6. Coke 7. Gatorade/ Sports Drink 8.Bottled Water 9. Club Soda and 10. Other
Other would be something not listed but you drink regularly. For example Kefir, now I have drunk snake blood, but that is cheating as I drank it once. Tastes a lot like human blood…and how do I know that? Well I have tasted my own blood a number of times, all involuntarily. I do wonder how many people have tasted their own blood. As for other people’s blood, Eric think you may put the negatory on that, getting kinky, scary and inappropriate.
Oh yeah, just for the record, I have never tasted another person’s blood, nor do I want to.
The news from King Donald is worse than Eric related. After blasting Zelensky again with lies, he declared himself king. Will we be jailed if we don’t address him as “sire” or “your majesty”? EZ commented on the cutting. It’s not that hard explain. He is cutting any agency that he and his billionaire buddies have a gripe against or can’t make anyone money. Check the list. The FBI that he’s accused of going after him. Any agency that investigates or protects the public. Inspector generals that help root out government fraud. Parks and forestry workers can’t make him any money. National Institute of Health which helps find causes of disease. The list goes on. I’m still waiting for the cuts in the commerce and treasury departments. How about the space force when we need be more concerned with what’s happening on this planet’s surface? Don’t even get me started on USAID. If funding Hamas was the problem, why not just cut funding for Hamas instead of slashing the entire program which did good things all over the world? Burger Boy has done more than throw the baby out with the bath water. He’s thrown out the entire basin because he he didn’t approve the color. There is something else going on here. EZ wants the media to stand up against him. I wouldn’t hold my breath. I read a story yesterday that news organizations are starting to cringe at the thought of further retaliation by Burger Boy. The Washington Post honchos have stopped editorials against him. Sorry EZ- but I don’t know that your fraternal brothers are going to do a damn thing except for those like you that opted out. Will their bosses,cringing in fear, let them?
We never funded Hamas, that moron confused the condoms we sent to a town in Mozambique to prevent the spread of AIDS there, also named Gaza, with the Gaza Strip.
He's dumber than a box of rocks!
I only mentioned it because it is a standard MAGA complaint including one here in this forum who claimed the money was used to build Hamas tunnels. I have no idea how he knew that. But even if true, wouldn’t it have been a lot simpler just to tell the program not to fund Hamas rather than slash the entire program?
He's far too stupid & vile to do anything rational like that!
But selectively cutting programs would not further the real goal - getting rid of anything that has even a whiff of a humanitarian purpose. They are refocusing the US government away from helping anyone, anywhere, in the name of reducing taxes for the wealthy. They want to isolate us from the world (except Russia?) and they are doing a bang-up job of it thus far.
Exactly! The goal seems to be to strip away any semblance of America being a force for good, leaving only the menacing image of a superpower with enough war machinery to destroy the world several times over.
I said this many years ago. Even before the horrible invention called MAGA, there were many that wanted to retreat from our supposed policing the entire world. We tried isolation before both World War I and World War II. How did that work out? Burger Boy sells it by appealing to to the wallets of conservatives. They are not smart enough to realize the costs of actually doing it.
Hi Laurence - Here is a link to a news report on a USAID grant that funded a cement factory in Gaza in 2916 - and to a firm with ties to Hamas. (If you Google the subject, there are numerous reports on this.) It took a lot of cement to construct those terror tunnels.
https://globaldisconnect.substack.com/p/usaid-gifted-a-cement-factory-to
I hope you are well, enjoy the warm-up!
I have no interest in your link and it still doesn’t explain why the entire program had to go away.
Hey Mr Nite Owl - The USAID has done much good in the world for humanitarian causes in programs for food assistance, healthcare, clean water, etc. that should and likely will continue in one form or another. However, the USAID current budget of $43 BILLION of our tax dollars critically needs a great deal of scrutiny and review.
In addition to funding the concrete plant in Gaza undoubtedly used for the Hamas terrorist tunnels, there are many, many inappropriate uses of taxpayer dollars for things such as:
2022 Grant to Centro Ecuatoriano Norte Americano for drag shows in Ecuador
2024 $500,000 Grant to Humanists International to promote atheism in Nepal and Asia
$70,000 for an Irish musical on DEI
$47,000 for a transgender opera in Columbia
$6 MILLION to "transform digital spaces to reflect feminist democratic principles"
$2 MILLION for "gender change and LGBT advocacy in Guatemala
$20 MILLION for a new Sesame Street show in Iraq
$1.5 MILLION to "promote LGBT advocacy" in Jamaica
$32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru
All these and many more such expenditures are things that the overwhelming majority of Americans would not want our tax dollars used for.
This report from the US Inspector General's office detailing an alarming lack of accountability by UN agencies and foreign NGO's in the administration of USAID grants mandates that this massive flow of our tax dollars be paused in it's entirety until there is a thorough review and much better accountability.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://oig.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/2025-01/USAID%2520Inspector%2520General%2520Memorandum%2520Challenges%2520to%2520Accountability%2520and%2520Transparency%2520Within%2520USAID-Funded%2520Programs.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwi-m_6RgamLAxVMG9AFHSn9GwIQFnoECCoQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2OvycgoXx9LpP6gW0_fCr5
Fine. Now address other issues like declaring himself king and illegal firings. How about trying to dislodge Gazans and lying about Zelenskyy and who started the war? And if you even try to justify it by telling me Putin saw them as a threat for joining NATO, you are on my ignore list. Hitler used the same kind of lies to justify attacking Poland.
Exactly. He's trying, on the face of it, to run the government like a business (here we come bankruptcy), but of course that is the exact opposite of what government should be. On a smaller scale, imagine if police, fire or park departments were for-profit concerns. Only the rich would have their property and safety protected or have access to open spaces. And I'm guessing that's exactly what his royal fuhrer wants. Now extend that to healthcare, roads, schools, product safety and the million other things our taxes are supposed to pay for. The man is the most dangerous, deranged piece of evil I've seen in my lifetime.
Back when Keith Olbermann was still on MSNBC, he aired a story about a town in Tennessee where you had to pay an annual subscription fee for fire protection - the story centered around a man whose house burned down while the fire department stood back and watched, because he hadn't paid the fee. They only showed up when the fire spread to a neighbor's house that had paid.
https://youtu.be/71f6B0AqZAU?si=uMrerIoMiv7htVVA
Horrifying!!
Antiques Roadshow used to have people bring in plaques that had been on old 18th Century homes that showed you paid for fire protection.
Chicago also once had a company, even in the early 20th Century, that went to fires at businesses that paid them & they covered up things inside a building if there was a fire to protect that equipment from the water & flames.