It really doesn't matter to us that Sarah Sewell (aka Sarah Sewar) doesn't like Ava and C.I.'s "TV: Charlie Rose by any other name would still be as bad." That article went up December 30th of last year and it's a rare week when The Cult of Sarah doesn't argue for it to come down for a variety of laughable reasons.
Last week, Sarah Sewar dispatched more students to plead to us. It needs to come down, we were instructed, for feminism.
What a laugh.
It's not coming down. It didn't come down when the Cult started their smear campaign on the work of David Price (e-mails from January 12th through Feb. 20th). It didn't come down when the 'Monty McFate is really a sweetheart' e-mails came in (those began the day the piece went up and stopped only when Monty's sister got busted for being a NRA operative infiltrating peace groups -- apparently they then had to work on silencing others and put us on hold). It certainly didn't come down during March when the e-mails focus was how this could 'hurt' Barack. (Sewer is an advisor to Barack.)
None of the attempts have worked and none will.
But the new thread is 'for feminism.'
Sarah Sewar's not a feminist. She's a War Hawk. She's responsible for the counter-insurgency strategy being used in Afghanistan and Iraq. She wants even more war (and apparently thinks Barack will provide her with it -- we don't disagree with her on that).
Sarah Sewar elected to go on The Charlie Rose Show with her running buddy Monty McFate. Don't like what Ava and C.I. wrote?
Well, you don't have to.
But we read over it (Ava and C.I. didn't bother to). We're fine with it.
Sarah Sewar (an adult) goes on TV to preach more war? TV's a visual medium. Ava and C.I. regularly critique the appearances of men and women on TV. Don't like it? Don't read it.
We searched the e-mails pleading Sarah's case on behalf of 'feminism' last week for anything beside Sarah's appearance (we'd say she's "ghastly") and didn't find any. The e-mails had no argument other than Sarah's appearance was judged and that's just not feminism! Well, tell her to stick to radio if she doesn't want her appearance commented on.
Two especially took exception to this:
We weren't sure whether Monty was attempting to play the Marci to Sewer's Patti de Pastilles de menthe or the Alice B. Toklas to Sewer's Gertrude Stein but we did enjoy the sucking up Monty did to Sewer for two main reasons. One, Sewer was basking in it and looking even more the pompous fool than usual. Two, we know Monty. We know how she operates. She butters up a dupe right before she attempts to steal credit. Monty's a backstabber and a publicity hound so we are eager to see exactly what damage she'll inflict on Sewer before this is all over.
Sadly, the two didn't even grasp that "Patti de Pastilles de menthe" is Peppermint Patty (from Peanuts). But we've seen the broadcast and Monty is sucking up to Sarah and, as Ava and C.I. know (Monty's from this area), when Monty sucks up, she's up to something, usually a back stabbing.
One of Sarah's grad students insist that Ava and C.I. called Sarah a "whore" and that is just not feminism! Here's the section and be very scared of the comprehension level of Sewer's grad students:
For those not in the know about Sewer, when not appearing on TV to look like an unwashed freak who just pulled her hair to one side, is a Bloody War Hawk. Some call her a War Whore, but we try to avoid that term and just call her a War Hawk with an "ugly" sometimes tossed in. As a War Hawk she operates out of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy which is really just a fancy way of saying she's a Destruction Pusher. There's no place on the globe that she doesn't feel her big nose can be stuck in and should be stuck in. Granted, it is a large beak, a ski run -- if you will, and it probably is difficult for her to contain it in her so-so dwellings, but not only does no one need to see it, no one wants to.
Though Ava and C.I. don't call her a "War Whore," we will. We're also aware that despite the power Sarah Sewer holds (including on the Barack campaign), no one dares criticize her. When she's discussed, it's one or two quick sentences and then a race to move on.
Sewer needs to be discussed. She is for the Iraq War and is a Barack adviser. Sewer wasn't just for the Iraq War when it started -- as Ava and C.I. document it, she is still for the illegal war:
Sewer came close to unhinging in public when she went into rapid-fire mode, spitting out sentences about the failure of states, her desire to create "a strong, international force," how the illegal war must not be seen "as a failure" and her "concern" that, if Iraq is seen as a failure, "we'll move towards isolationism" or, worse, send in the military to "strike him and get out" (as opposed to occupying -- and "him" wasn't identified by the War Pig). That truly does concern Sewer because her whole existence, her belief system such as it is, is rooted in the notion that she, and only she, possess the wisdom to decide.
The Iraq War, an illegal war, unprovoked, must not be seen "as a failure"?
Again, this is one of Barack's foreign policy advisers. Here's Ava and C.I. pointing out that Charlie and Sewer thought it was cute to have a little insider-baseball talk at the expense of the viewers:
He found it just awful that politicians weren't echoing the War Hawk work that Sewer and Monty were doing, "You don't hear candidates talk about this."
"We do actually," Sewer said in full repression mode. She went on to whine that War Hawk Barack Obama "gave a speech" incorporating their plans for War Eternal but it was lost as people focused on other things. Still, Sewer assured Chuckie, "at least one candidate has done that."
Smirking like the valet that mistook himself for an insider, Chuckie offered, "I'm familiar with some of the people behind the scenes that you know" who wrote Obama's speech. He means, among others, Sammy Power. But she's become such a drag on the Obama campaign that no one's mentioning her, not even her buddy Chuck. Yet, watching, we had to wonder what PBS thought of that nonsense?
He's familiar? So what? Are people watching Public Broadcasting to have Charlie smirk about things he knows but doesn't intend to impart? Isn't he required to mention the names he knows? He brought it up, he wasn't under grand jury questioning. Exactly what, if anything, can our PBS friends find to defend in that moment? (Our answer, when the calls come in, will be "Not a damn thing" only we'll be use stronger language.)
For the record, Ava and C.I. received no complaint from PBS Friends about that commentary. The only feedback on it was that Rose doesn't need to have a private conversation on the public airwaves.
One of the e-mailers last week insists it is embarrassing for Sewer and for Barack that the commentary is up. We'll assume that's because Sewer is the one The Nation, Democracy Now!, The Progressive, et al refuse to explore. They give her a pass and she gets away with a lot of damage.
She went on broadcast TV and bragged about how tight she was with "at least one candidate," insisted the illegal war must not be judged a failure, advocated occupations of other countries and bragged about her counter-insurgency work.
She gets no pass from us.
Don't like the tone, oh well.
Applause to one for identifying herself as a student of Sewer's. We checked the rest, you all are.
Which is another reason the article stays up: Sewell does a lot of damage, including infecting college minds.
She's an adult, she went on television, she looked ghastly. Ava and C.I. are covering TV. If a visual detail strikes them as worth noting, they note it. They noted the strong camera work in Flashpoint. They noted that the Princes of Malibu treated the two young men like they existed from the neck up while zooming in on bikini-bottomless women.
In one of our personal favorites pieces, they write, "Judd Hirsch's belly? Don't get us started. We both gasped when he was shown walking on a golf course. Whatever happened to the cast of Taxi? Apparently Judd ate them."
You don't have to like what they do and you don't have to read it.
You do need to grasp that they're writing about a visual medium (this week's commentary finds time to mention visuals including bad camera work). Children are off-limits to them. That's child actors and children who are non-professionals. They draw the line at that. Anyone else who goes on TV is fair game if they stand out to them.
We grasp that Sewer doesn't like the piece. We grasped that a long time ago, many, many e-mails ago. It doesn't upset us. Again, we're thrilled that Ava and C.I. had the guts to do what the 'brave' voices of 'alternative' media didn't: Call out Sewer.
One of last week's e-mails wanted to insist that Ava and C.I.'s commentary was not "the feminist belief system." There's no "the." Ava and C.I. repeatedly have noted (since 2005) that they are offering "'a' feminist take, not 'the' take."
One of the Cult e-mailed four times last week, noting each time that she had e-mailed before and not gotten a response. You did get a response, the same response that all Cult members have received: Loud laughter on our end.
But in case she's only taking the weekend off and planning to e-mail over and over next week as well, we're putting this up so that she knows we read her e-mails -- her e-mails and the rest from Sarah's Cult. We read them, we laughed at them.
We laughed as the arguments for why the commentary must be taken down shifted over and over. We laughed at the ones explaining they were writing at Sarah's request. As the e-mail count on this multiplied and multiplied, we started to picture that Sewer added Ava and C.I.'s article to a class reading list. That made us laugh even harder.
-- Jim, Dona, Ty and Jess