Legitimate Political Discourse

Last week, the Republican National Committee’s 168 members took care of job #1 which is covering Donald Trump's enormous ass by taking action against the two Republican members of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The RNC voted to formally censure Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) for  “participating in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.”

No, that is NOT a typo.  

The RNC described the violent assault on the U.S. Capitol on January 6th as "legitimate political discourse". 

This is "legitimate political discourse"?

Meanwhile, Mike Pence found the tiny box his wife keeps his tiny balls in and in an address to the very,very conservative Federalist Society said the following:  

“And I heard this week that President Trump said I had the right to ‘overturn the election.’ President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election. The presidency belongs to the American people, and the American people alone."  

Now Pence tried to prove his bonafides as a true Republican with the bulk of his remarks with the usual prattle that Biden is bad, Democrats are bad and everything that is bad is the fault of Biden and the Democrats, blah, blah, blah. 

Pence, dude, you are so screwed. You said "Trump was wrong" and that is like the one thing Trump never wants to hear and if Trump ain't happy, the Republican Party ain't happy and you can bad mouth Joe Biden and Kamala Harris all the damn day long but you are so screwed.  

The very day Pence decided to recover his tiny balls from the tiny box his wife hides in a closet, the RNC was censuring two Republicans for just being on a committee investigating the assault on the Capitol that Trump instigated in the cause of his big lie that the election was stolen. And re-writing the events that threatened Pence's very life on that day as "legitimate political discourse". 

Here is an example of that "legitimate political discourse" from Ryan Nichols of Texas from recently released video taken that day.   

“I’m hearing reports that Pence caved! I’m telling you, if Pence caved, we’re gonna drag motherfuckers through the streets. You fucking politicians are gonna get fucking drug through the streets! Because we’re not going to have our fucking shit stolen! I’m telling you right now, Ryan Nichols said it: If you voted for fucking treason, we’re gonna drag your fucking ass through the street! So let us find out, let the patriots find out you fucking treasoned this country! If you have a weapon, you need to get your weapon! Cut their head off!” 

Trump supporters were threatening to kill Mike Pence and his own damn party doesn't have his back. 

Here's what Trump had to say in response to Pence's remarks: "

“Just saw Mike Pence’s statement on the fact that he had no right to do anything with respect to the Electoral Vote Count, other than being an automatic conveyor belt for the Old Crow Mitch McConnell to get Biden elected President as quickly as possible. Well, the Vice President’s position is not an automatic conveyor if obvious signs of irregularities or fraud exist." 

Of course there were NO signs of irregularities and fraud. 

Trump ended his statement with this uplifting message: “Our Country is going to hell!”

So Pence, just give your tiny balls back to your wife to put back into the tiny box that goes in the back of the closet.   

Cinema Sunday: ¡Three Amigos!

 

OK, after 4 weeks of Star Trek movies, it's time to move on to some serious cinema, a film not based on a TV or comic book franchise but a movie based on an original premise made by professional filmmakers. 

And today that movie is ¡Three Amigos!

And that's what we get for letting Andrea pick the movie. 

¡Three Amigos!  is a 1986 comedy film starring Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, and Martin Short who portray silent film stars Lucky Day, Dusty Bottoms and Ned Needlander.  They are famous for their series of Three Amigo movies. When they are unceremoniously dumped by their producer, they are more than happy with the unexpected stroke of luck of a telegram inviting them to go to Santa Poco in Mexico and perform for El Guapo. 

OK, about that telegram...

It is a desperate plea from a woman named Carmen, daughter of the village leader of Santa Poco, looking for help to stop the unceasing violent raids by the vicious killer, El Guapo.  

The Three Amigos do succeed in "chasing" off three of El Guapo's men who are more bemused and confused than anything.  The Amigos think they put on a good show, the village thinks the Amigos saved them and El Guapo is curious what this shit is all about. 

When El Guapo shows up in Santa Poco the next day with 50 men in tow, well, the jig is, as they say, up.  

The Amigos ride out of Santa Paco as fast they can do.

El Guapo's men ransack the village.

And El Guapo scoops up Carmen as an early birthday present for himself.  

The Amigos guiltily return to Santa Poco and realize it really does fall to them to save Carmen and help this poor town. 

The Amigos get to El Guapo's compound where he's getting ready to get down and party for his birthday.  

Hilarity ensue as the trio infiltrate the compound despite themselves and successful extricate Carmen from El Guapo's clutches. 

And for good measure save Santa Poco from El Guapo forever.

OK, let's just say that ¡Three Amigos! is an incredibly stupid movie.  

But it is an incredibly stupid movie with a sweet, innocent charm about it. The premise is too thin really to sustain an whole movie which may explain why it takes a weird turn towards the surreal in the middle with talking animals and a singing bush.  

Lucky, Dusty and Ned are supposed to be vacuous actor types who can't conceive of life beyond their own needs and expectations as actors. But the movie gives us little insight to who they are beyond that conceit. 

With the village ravaged and Carmen abducted, of course the Three Amigos realize they need to their shtick for realsies. Would've helped to have had some character building moments that lead to the realization. 

Despite being vacuous actor types, Lucky, Dusty and Ned are surprisingly skilled at doing things like jumping on to horses, riding, shooting and doing cool things with lariats and the like. I suppose if the Three Amgios were totally dependent on their stunt doubles and film trickery, they would just wind up dead which would not make for a very funny movie.

The "It's That  Person Who Was In That Thing" Dept.

•  Joe Mantegna is  Harry Flugleman who also voices the recurring role of mob boss Fat Tony on the animated series The Simpsons (and Flugleman sounds a lot like Fat Tony) and had a main role in Criminal Minds. 
• Phil Hartman as Sam andJon Lovitz as Morty are  Flugleman's assistants. Hartman and Lovitz were mainstays of late 19880's Saturday Night Live. Hartman later was featured in the role of news anchor Bill McNeill in NewsRadio before his untimely murder and Lovitz was the voice of film reviewer Jay Sherman in the animated series The Critic, both of which were favorites series of mine back in the day.   

The three leads of ¡Three Amigos! make the best of their thinly drawn roles with Steve Martin as Lucky Day moving effortlessly from easy going charm to goofy intensity while Martin Short's Ned Needlander occasionally lapses into Short's patented nervous routine but is the one who provides a surprising sense of moral direction for the Three Amigos. Chevy Chase as Dusty Bottoms is the most blank slate of the three. Chevy gets some stand out moments such as the scene in the desert when he's the one with the cantene with unlimited water as his companions are parched with thirst and the bit where Dusty is in disguise and pretending to be El Guapo's longtime buddy. 

The movie ends like for the Three Amigos as it does for the silent film counter parts with refusing to accept a financial reward from the grateful villagers of Santa Poco.

"Our reward is that justice has been done." They then ride off into the sunset.

And thus ends ¡Three Amigos! ,a pleasant enough diversion for 90 minutes with a few good laughs along the way. 

Next week, Cinema Sunday sticks around the 1980's. Since it's the day before Valentine's Day, we're going to look at a romantic comedy which ponders the question of can a Jewish girl find love with a pickle maker.

Songs For Saturday: They Might Be Giants and the B-52s

Mesopotamia is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Mesopotamia occupies most of present-day Iraq and Kuwait.  The historical region includes the head of the Persian Gulf and parts of present-day Iran, Syria, and Turkey.

Today Songs For Saturday presents a musical salute to Mesopotamia.

Starting with They Might Be Giants and "The Mesopotamians".  

The Sumerians and Akkadians (including Assyrians and Babylonians) dominated Mesopotamia from the beginning of written history (c. 3100 BC) to the fall of Babylon in 539 BC, when it was conquered by the Achaemenid Empire. It fell to Alexander the Great in 332 BC, and after his death, it became part of the Greek Seleucid Empire. Later the Arameans dominated major parts of Mesopotamia (c. 900 BC – 270 AD).

Now our a musical salute to Mesopotamia. continues with The B-52's with a song entitled appropriately enough  "Mesopotamia".  

I used to play that song back in the day on college radio.

And that is that for this week's Songs For Saturday.  

Until next time, remember to be good to one another and to always keep the music alive.  

FLASHBACK FRIDAY: The Adventures of Knock-Knock, the Interrupting Cow

 For today's Flashback Friday, I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You presents not one or two but ten (10, dammit!) classic post now collected in one convenient post.

Here is every installment of The Adventures of Knock-Knock, the Interrupting Cow that ran on this blog from Thursday, January 2, 2014 to Thursday, March 13, 2014.

Why?

Because I hate you all.   

The Wordle Hurdle

 Well, fuck! Wordle got me!

Like a lot of other people, this stupid online word game has become a daily compulsion. 

Wordle is a web-based word game developed by Josh Wardle so Josh has a corner of hell reserved for him, I'm sure.

The deal is to solve the mystery of that day's 5 letter word. 

Each attempt at solving the word of the day let's you know 1 of three things:

1) which letters are NOT in the word

2) which letters are correct but not where I guessed them to be

3) which letters are correct AND where I guess them to be.

The player gets six attempts to solve the word.

On a really good day, I solve the word in 3 tries.

Mostly, I get it done in 4 or 5. 

I will sadly admit to one day when I used up all my tries and failed to get the word of the day.

That was humiliating.   

My daughter Randie and I swap our Wordle scores each day. 

It should be a fun daily challenge but mostly it's a pain in the ass and I always kick myself that I didn't solve it one less move than I did.  

And I am concerned that my daily Wordle score might be a requirement for things.

"Sir, can we see your driver's license and today's Wordle score."

 

A screenshot of a typical result  on Wordle 

The Maus That Offended

In Tennessee, the McMinn County School Board voted on Jan. 10 to ban a book from the school curriculum citing bad language and nudity.  

The book in question was "Maus", a Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust. 

Art Spiegelman wrote and illustrated the story of his Jewish parents living in 1940s Poland and his father's traumatic experience as a survivor of the Holocaust. 

Spiegelman cast anthropomorphic animals in his illustrations with Jews represented as mice and the Nazis as cats. 

It's long been considered a seminal work of graphic art and literature and an important part of teaching about the history of the Holocaust and the people who were devastated by the heinous and torturous crimes of the Nazis.

So the McMinn County School Board decided the book had to go. 

Apparently the instigating factor leading to "Maus" being banned is some offensive language.

At some point, someone says "God damn". 

And some nude women appear. 

Among the ways the Nazis would demean and dehumanize the Jews in the concentration camps was to strip them naked.

And remember that Art Spiegelman drew the Jews as mice.

So it seems that the McMinn County School Board has a problem with naked mice women, I guess?

Look, if Tucker Carlson is going to go off that the green M&M is no longer sexy enough, I suppose there might be concern that the naked mice women in the process of being humiliated and tortured might be titillating to some teenagers?

Man, there must be some truly fucked up pervs on the McMinn County School Board.

Now these same school board censors are tying themselves in knots to say that "Maus" is not being banned for it's subject matter.  

Although banning a book about the holocaust right before International Holocaust Remembrance Day is not a good look.

But the same right wing nut cases who are offended by the Lord's name being taken in vain and the appearance of naked mice women are part of the same toxic soup of right wing ideologues that includes people who are at best implicitly and at worst explicitly anti-Semitic. 

There are a lot of reasons why a lot of right wing people would be happy to see "Maus" toss on a bonfire for reasons beyond god damned naked mice women. 

And there is a growing movement among alleged conservatives to ban books that do anything to offend their sensibilities like being pro-gay and anti-racist.  

And also it seems pro-naked mice women, I suppose?

In human history, we've seen this pattern play out before, people promoting an agenda of hate and fear of others looking to curtail any criticism of that hate and fear by banning books.

In the 1930s, the Nazi Party burned a hell of a lot of books.

Who says history can't repeat itself?

Tuesday TV Touchbase: Jeopardy and Snowpiercer

Even the greatest run by even the greatest champion in any sport has to end sometime.

And so must it be for Jeopardy as well.  

Amy Schneider’s 40 game winning streak crashed into game 41 on Wednesday last week.  

Schneider who won $1,382,800  over her time on Jeopardy has a lot to be proud of.  

Or as Amy herself put it, “This Jeopardy! run is most likely what I will be remembered for, and if so, I’d be quite content to have that as my legacy."   

But nonetheless, it was heartbreaking to see her go out in the way she did.

Her Final Jeopardy response?

"What is ______________?"

Some days there's just nothing left in the tank.

Much like college basketball tournaments, there is no room for a bad day on Jeopardy. You win, you move on. You lose, you don't.  

Amy is also the 2nd long term Jeopardy champion to be brought down by a college librarian. (James Holzhauer's run was cut short by a college librarian as well.)  

It's going to be very interesting to see what happens when Amy Schneider goes up against Matt Amodio in the next Tournament of Champions.

One last Jeopardy note: as far as I'm concerned, Ken Jennings is the host of Jeopardy. I adored Mayam Bialik's turns behind the podium but Jennings as host just feels right.

Just give him the job on the regular already.  

__________________________

"Snowpiercer is all that is left of the world!"

In the weeks leading up to the debut of the first season of Snowpiercer, it was an inescapable mantra. 

But as season three gets underway, perhaps, just maybe...

Snowpiercer is NOT all that is left of the world!

Season 2 ended with Layton leading an uprising against Wilford's oppressive autocratic rule, an uprising that led to the forced separation of the combined Snowpiercer/Big Alice Train.

With his half of the train, Layton is trying to make sure Melanie Cavill didn't die in vain, that from her data that the world may be starting to warm up, there is somewhere habitable on Earth where life might begin again. 

Their journey has taken them to North Korea where the discovery of an underground bunker has led to finding a survivor, someone who has lived in that bunker for 8 years. 

And Layton has a vision, of a massive tree somewhere in an unfrozen African desert.   

On the other half of the train, life under Wilford is a grueling slog. Big Alice lacks the power of the Snowpiercer engine so that part of the train is underpowered, everyone forced to working in freezing temperatures with dwindling supplies of food. Leading the resistance against Wilford is of all people Ruth.

From jump way back in season 1, Ruth a faithful acolyte, a firm and devoted believer in Wilford's vision and his destiny to lead human kind out of it's frozen doom to salvation. Now Ruth is devoted to Layton and to overthrow Wilford's iron grasp on Snowpiercer. She has seen the light that Wilford is concerned only with his ego, his own selfish needs.  

By the way, it turns out engineer Javi was not mauled to death by Wilford's monster dog. Instead he is a stitched together zombie man with a dead eye stare pushing buttons in Big Alice at Wilford's command. 

And the Headwoods, Wilford's resident mad scientists, are up to some sketchy shit with Zarah's unborn child.   

There are a lot of wheels in motion as season 3 debuts to propel Snowpiercer  through the rest of the season. 

And that is I think that for this week's Tuesday TV Touchbase

Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep it down in there, would ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here.