Jim (Con't): Last edition was a Thanksgiving edition and though many readers e-mailed in appreciation, a few were horrified. Dona?
Dona: It's a holiday. In Jim's "A note to our readers," we noted, "Glen Ford has an important essay on Thanksgiving and the myths around it." If you're opposed to Thanksgiving, that was there in the edition by noting that essay. Other than that, I don't know what to tell you?
C.I.: I'll speak because we did raise these issues ahead of the edition, that some would be offended. Jim did think including that link to Glen Ford's piece would help. I thought we needed something fuller than just a link. So let me speak, and I try not to speak at all in these things. First off, as discussed before, I don't have a huge chunk of my memory from childhood. We'll leave it at that and move on. But the point in raising that is, if, as one reader Ty told me about stated in an e-mail, you're thinking that we are endorsing myths of Thanksgiving, I don't have them. I don't have any memories of being taught about the pilgrims. Every thing I know about them and Thanksgiving, I know from ADAMS FAMILY VALUES. I'm not joking. So I'm not embracing any tales of the past that were fairy tales taught us as children. What I am embracing is my memories which include Elaine and I, in college, having Thanksgiving together.
Elaine: I'll jump in. We were freshman, it was Thanksgiving. My brother, my only family member, our parents when I was young, was out of the country. Everyone was leaving for Thanksgiving, C.I. included. When she found out that I wasn't, she said she'd stay. We hosted a Thanksgiving for others on campus who had nowhere to go. I cooked the deserts, C.I. cooked everything else. Since that first Thanksgiving, we've spent almost everyone together since.
C.I.: And that's Thanksgiving for me. I support anyone's right to define that day however they want -- but supporting anyone's right includes my own right to define it for me. It's about friends and love. That's what it is to me. If you want to go historical on it, I'm not the one to interact with because I don't have it, don't have the knowledge base. However, I am analytical so let me point out this, who are you letting win? If you think it was a day that ended up starting genocide -- and I won't deny that it did -- are you letting the pilgrims define it? So, in that view, the pilgrims destroyed the Native Americans and now all these years later you're letting them do it again? My point is, the Native American response was a good one and a honest one. They are the Thanksgiving story. People with no roots were in their area and they reached out to them. That was a wonderful and caring thing for Native Americans to do. We can applaud and echo their efforts today and establish them as the winners by doing so. Or we can let history define the Anglo White crusaders as the pivotal group to define what is yet again. I'd rather be a Native America embracing and welcoming, myself.
Betty: I love that! Support!
C.I.: I'm not picking on anyone, everyone can define themselves and that holiday how they want. But stop assuming that there's only one definition and you get to provide it for everyone. It's not that simple, life rarely is. I don't see myself as perpetuating the dominant culture so I don't see myself as honoring the pilgrims or whatever some people seem to see the holiday as.
Marcia: I think those are solid points. As an African-American woman, I reclaim many things in this society. I think C.I.'s point about the Native American instinct -- and honoring it -- is a solid point.
Jim: Unless anyone has anything to add --
Rebecca: I'll do it. I'll be the grinch here. It's a holiday, for many that means a day off, I don't get the need to be Debbie Downer. Some of the people who e-mailed to complain? Do you think we invented Thanksgiving or that we profit from it? It's a holiday. Celebrate however you like. By all means, use the day to note the horrors that were done to Native Americans. Otherwise, stop being such a negative Nancy. I really think people get coddled too much.
Jim: Okay. We'll move on to another topic. Reader Shawn e-mails, "Michelle Goldberg is a nut job and her claims that the people didn't elect Donald Trump are insane." Yes, they are. She's a conspiracy nut-job writing for THE NEW YORK TIMES who used to write for THE NEW REPUBLIC. She's a centrist nut-job devoted to conspiracies and embarrassment to the paper that they'll try to disown a few years down the line but for now they let her crazy flag fly.
Ruth: I read the column. Huge disappointment. Huge waste of time. If she wants to argue that the people did not elect Donald Trump president because of the electoral college being the body that elected him, then she has to argue that every president was elected by the electoral college because that is how it worked before. That is the system we have. She is a nut job.
Wally: And there's no one here, participating in this roundtable who disagrees that the electoral college needs to be abolished. We think there should be a direct vote.
Stan: Hell, we favor direct vote for everything. The Emmys are a joke because the voters don't
pick the winners the way they do with the Academy Awards. We are against all bodies deciding. We believe in direct vote. At this site -- and other community sites -- we've all long argued that the electoral college needs to be abolished. Has Michelle Goldberg made that argument? I haven't heard do so. She only whines when she doesn't like the outcome. She is a nut job and a part of the reason that journalism is in the toilet.
Ruth: We need to abolish the electoral college. Do I think that is going to happen next year? No. I do not even think it will happen in my lifetime. But I do think, in forty or so years, it will happen. I feel that is where we are moving. Thankfully.
Jim: What else does everyone think we'll see in forty years or so?
Rebecca: God willing, Medicare For All.
Trina: Exactly. We need it and we have never been closer to it than right now. That's why it is my determining factor for which candidate I will support. It amazes me that we basically have to beg for this and beg over and over and over. In other countries, this is a right.
Mike: And it should be here as well. Elaine wrote about how not only FDR but also JFK saw it as needed and necessary. And C.I.'s written about how we need to see this as a torch to carry, especially for the Democratic Party. JFK and FDR are heroes to many people, not just Democrats. Why are we not invoking their names and explaining that this has been a long push? I don't get it. And Tiny Pete and others need to be held accountable.
Cedric: I agree completely. It's not enough to just say 'I won't vote for Mayor Pete.' We need to be calling him out, calling Amy Klobuchar out, calling out everyone who is trying to deny the American people the basic right that is Medicare For All. They are conducting a war against the American people and we need to rebuke them.
Kat: "Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "No Deal Nancy" was getting at that as well.
Kat (Con't): With the whole point of Nancy rebuking FDR's New Deal.
Ann: This goes to the whole point about needing to know our history -- our real history -- and about how, when we don't, we have to reinvent the wheel. People like Trina, Margaret Flowers and many others have been writing about the need for Medicare For All for years now. Activists like Zenei Cortez have been at the forefront of raising the issue and advancing it. Of course, Bernie Sanders made it a required discussion with his 2016 run for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. All of this work has come together and, I agree with Trina, that we have never been closer than we are right now to seeing it become a reality.
Isaiah: Which is why we're seeing Bloombergs and others trying to jump into the race to prevent us from getting what we need. What we are asking for is so small and so basic but such a threat to corporate interests that they are in a panic over this.
Trina: Exactly and that panic effects how the corporate media portrays -- or ignores -- Bernie Sanders.
Betty: And let's call out puppet master Barack Obama with his plan to leap into the conversation should Bernie become the clear and undisputed candidate for the nomination this go round. Barack needs to back it up and sit that tired ass down. He did nothing he promised and his legacy is a joke.
Cedric: I want to say something on that. His legacy is a joke, clearly I agree with Betty. I also like BLACK AGENDA REPORT. But Margaret Kimberley reTweeted something claiming Glen Ford, et al called Barack out from the beginning. They did not. That's one reason BLACK AGENDA REPORT exists to begin with. Glen Ford, the late Bruce Dixon and Margaret Kimberley all wrote for THE BLACK COMMENTATOR. Glen and Bruce attempted to tell the truth about Barack and his DLC connections and that was verboten at THE BLACK COMMENTATOR. Because they are committed to truth, they went elsewhere and that's how we got BLACK AGENDA REPORT. THE BLACK COMMENTATOR censored Glen and Bruce, they would not allow the full truth about Barack to be published. I think it's important to celebrate BLACK AGENDA REPORT -- and I'm glad that we do -- but I also think it's important to explain how it came to be because that goes to integrity and character.
Ann: Which is the foundation of BLACK AGENDA REPORT.
Marcia: She finished it for you perfectly.
Cedric: Exactly why I married her!
Ty: There's an issue in the e-mails about the overviews Ava and C.I. have done and two points that people wanted raised. First, Ava is asked to repeat what she and C.I. wrote about in July regarding channel scanning.
Ava: Help me out, Ty.
Ty: Over the air channels.
Ava: Oh. A lot of people who are using antennas on their TVs think the atenna must have gone back because six months ago they got A, B, C, D, E and on and on. Now they only get A and B. Time to buy a new antenna! No. You have to rescan on your TV -- rescan the channels like you first did when you attached the antenna. Probably every six months -- sooner if you notice you're losing channels -- you should rescan the channels. If you don't, the HD TV is not going to pick them up. Why is that? I'm sure there's a reason. I don't know it. I just know that we did a mail bag where we addressed that issue and other technical ones for the gina & krista round-robin.
Ty: Thank you. And community member Alan asked that it be repeated here because he did not know that.
Stan: I didn't know it either. I have HULU PLUS LIVE so when my channels from the antenna started fading, I just accepted it and didn't worry too much since HULU provides me with four local channels. But then I read that in Ava and C.I.'s column and did what they said, rescan, suddenly I've got ANTENNA TV, MYTV, COZY, etc. All the channels that had vanished.
Ty: Rita, Juan, Michael and Belinda wrote in asking about smart TVs and programming them. Is it complicated for everyone. If you're getting this on audio via HILDA'S MIX, you can hear a lot of laughter right now. If you're just reading the text at our site, I'll tell you that people are laughing and I'll then explain why. Jim and Jess Black Friday-ed and picked up TVs for a lot of people and that included themselves. Jim will tell you he was freaking out.
Jim: I was. That was impossible. We grabbed ROKU TVs. Jess and I knew a friend who needed a TV and we talked about doing Black Friday since our families were coming here so we'd all be in the Bay Area. We needed to pick up a TV. But we were half-assing, right, Jess?
Jess: Yeah. And then some.
Jim: So it got to be eight o'clock and we were like, "Uh, are we going to go."
Jess: We should explain we were playing with our kids. We were all on the living room floor and we'd been playing Leggos and then Trouble -- the board game. And it meant getting off the floor, putting on shoes --
Jim: And we were so comfortable! So we said, "Yeah, let's go." That's around eight. It was 9:45 when we finally got in the car. We got to the store and the TVs that were supposed to be on sale were already gone.
Jess: I took it as a sign. But Jim was furious. I'm thinking, it's after ten and the store opened at six, what were you expecting? But he's mad and pushing the buggy off to any other department looking for anything on sale since the TVs are all gone.
Jim: Make fun of me if you will but my angry storming around the store paid off because after I found nothing --
Jess: And cursed a lot.
Jim: And cursed a lot, they brought out three more pallets of TVs. So I yell, "Get two more buggies!"
And we put four TVs into each one. So we got one for our friend and we grabbed one each for us and that left the rest as Christmas gifts.
Jess: And that's our Black Friday story we're sharing but the laughter is because the two we got for us were difficult to set up.
Jim: I couldn't even find the TV bottom arms that they stand on. I was thinking, "Do we prop this against a wall? I should have gotten a wall mount."
Jess: They were hidden in the styrofoam. I found them and attached them to each of the TVs.
Jim: But it ended up being Ava and C.I. who set them up -- did the electronic part. We were griping and C.I. came over with more left overs -- we'd all eaten at her place -- which is right across from Ava's. And we were griping and she grabbed one of the remotes. Then Ava grabbed the other.
Ava: If C.I. hadn't helped, I was fine letting them struggle through. It was funny and the kids were already asleep in their rooms so Jim's cursing was no problem and easy to laugh at.
Jim: But, yeah, they knocked it out quickly. So I would say that for most people it can be a pain in the butt to set up. Even more than setting up a new laptop. But not as bad as getting a new cell phone without being able to transfer everything over automatically.
Dona: I just want to point out how much tech has changed since this site started. Just to stay with the TV issue, we were using our SONY BLU-RAY players back then to access the internet and watch HULU and then NETFLIX when it started streaming. Then we got sticks -- for us ROKU -- and we would stream via that. Now it's smart TVs and you don't need the sticks. But when this site started, I don't think we were even streaming except on our computers -- and it was computers mainly, not laptops.
Ty: Yeah and remember what we would stream? Real Audio Network? Was that a thing? Seems like we'd stream AIR AMERICA RADIO and we would stream, I remember, DEMOCRACY NOW! We'd stream PACIFICA radio channels.
Stan: I'm going to do like community member Alan and bring up something Ava and C.I. stress in the newsletters: Free streaming. TUBI, CRACKLE and PLUTO are free streaming services.
Mike: And I love PLUTO now that they have the James Bond channel. I'll leave it on that if it's just me even though I've seen all the James Bond films. They have other channels too and I'd urge anyone who's not checked out PLUTO in a while to give it another look.
Stan: Agreed. They've got a PARAMOUNT MOVIE CHANNEL that I love. And ROKU has some episodes of Carol Burnett's variety show among its free offerings. VUDU has a range of free movies and free TV shows.
Mike: I saw that YOUTUBE was offering some free movies if you're okay with watching commercials. And AMAZON PRIME, which you pay for, has a free channel, IMDB, that has FRINGE and other TV shows as well as a lot of films.
C.I.: IMDB is a channel you can add by itself, I believe. So if you don't have PRIME, you should be able to pull it up. KANOPY is a streaming service that requires a library card -- and that your library participate in the service. You get a limited number of films or TV shows a month for free via the arrangement they have with your library. XUMO is a channel I'm new to. It has free movies and TV -- THE LUCY SHOW, for example. Feeds for the network news. Some home improvement shows. Horror movies, Christmas movies. It's a service that is free because there are commercials. I'm always surprised when people are no-commercials! How do you expect it to be free without them? I'm also appalled by PBS. You can basically watch a week's worth of programming online or streaming but after that they're charging you, they are locking it away from the public unless you donate. I'm already disgusted that SESAME STREET moved over to HBO but now this? Public television gets its money from the taxpayers. This really is nonsense. Anyway. FILMRISE is a free channel to check out as well.
Rebecca: One thing we've been talking about lately is show's we miss. I think it's because of WILL & GRACE and how Debra Messing screwed everyone over so the reboot's ending this season.
Wally: That has been a funny show and I wish the reboot would have lasted eight years. I will never forgive petty Debra for alienating people and causing the end of the show.
Rebecca: Amen. So I thought we could go around and note, like we've been talking out of the roundtable, the shows that we miss most.
Dona: Good topic. I'm going back to my teen years here but, yes, I was one of those JOAN OF ARCADIA fans. I also used to love JUDGING AMY.
Ann: I liked both of those. But I'm going to go with EVERYBODY LOVES CHRIS. I really think they need a TV movie to give us an update on what happened. I'd take a TV movie of Martin Lawrence doing Sheneneh. Or even a stand-up special where he does Sheneneh.
Marcia: THE EVENT. I still can't believe that show got cancelled. I loved it.
Stan: If you're going with THE EVENT, I'm going to go with THE CAPE. That was a really cool superhero show. I also loved NO ORDINARY FAMILY. Too many great shows got the axe. I don't think NETFLIX needed to 'rescue' ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT. But they did. And they certainly didn't need to rescue DESIGNATED SURVIVOR but shows that they should have rescued -- including THE EVENT -- they walked out on.
Isaiah: Which isn't a surprise when you realize how they cancelled SENSE8 -- that was their own hit. I'm still ticked about that and, no, doing a movie to wrap it up did not excuse cancelling the show, sorry. SENSE8 is the show I want most to see brought back.
Ruth: ORPHAN BLACK. It got a wrap up and everything but I really do miss it.
Betty: That's a good one. Everyone's had some strong choices. I'm going to go with REVENGE. In fact, with REVENGE and with SALEM. Ashley Madekwe was good in both shows and I think REVENGE could have continued without Emily -- if they felt that story was done -- by having Emily pass the baton to Ashley.
C.I.: Just FYI, ABC is attempting a reboot of REVENGE.
Betty: I will definitely check that out and let me thank Ann for covering the reboot of CHARMED. Because of her recaps, I finally checked the show out and love it. I wish I'd watched from the beginning but Sundays are difficult nights.
Ann: Right? I agree If it's a church night, and it is for our family, forget it. Marcia's covering BATWOMAN and I have to catch that one on HULU after it airs.
Marcia: I catch it on HULU after it airs as well. Sundays are a hard time to do live TV watching. Trina, do you have a show you'd like to see come back?
Trina: With VEEP finally over, maybe Julia Louis-Drefus could go back to a reboot of THE NEW ADVENTURES OF OLD CHRISTINE? That was one of the last funny sitcoms on TV. I love the WILL & GRACE reboot but it's going. I do like THE NEIGHBORHOOD. Jim's talked that show up so I checked it out and I do like it. Most of the sitcoms today are just not funny. Sorry. It doesn't help that so many are single-cam shows. I'd hoped we'd never return to the whimsy of THE COURTSHIP OF EDDIE'S FATHER being passed off as funny.
Elaine: I hate the single-cams too. They're just not funny. I think HAPPY ENDINGS should have had additional seasons. I think THE GRINDER was a funny show that got dumped too quickly.
Cedric; I liked RINGER, Sarah Michelle Geller's CW show. I was really ticked when that got axed.
Kat: I felt the same way when NBC axed BELIEVE. Jake McLaughlin's a solid actor. He was good on QUANTICO as well.
Wally: I'd go with ENLISTED. That was a funny show. If FOX had given it a slot on Sunday nights, it would have gotten a lot more viewers. It was a funny comedy.
Ty: SENSE8. I'm a die hard fan and will never forgive NETFLIX for axing it. So I'm with Isaiah on this.
Jim: Mine is a NETFLIX show as well -- SANTA CLARITA DIET. Ann?
Ann: I'll go with Anna Torv's SECRET CITY. That show really pulled you in and kept you wondering what was going to happen next.
Jim: Good choices all. Mike, saving the best for last, your pick?
Mike: NIKITA and FRINGE. Both were awesome shows.
Jim: Alright then. Okay, we're wrapping up. You're reading a rush transcript.