Tuesday, June 28, 2016

TV: What it can say about humanity

When did we, as a people, stop caring?

Or did we ever care?

abtv

We wondered that when watching JACK HANNA'S INTO THE WILD -- on TV, on NETFLIX, on AMAZON PRIME and on HULU -- Saturday.

Jack Hanna was in Cape Town with Sue and they were helping a woman herd baboons across a busy road.

Or trying to.

Some drivers were clearly irritated about having to stop.


Why did they have to stop.

The road ran through two areas where the baboons forage.

The baboons did not suddenly appear on the scene.

They were there.

Humanity chose to build housing developments there, to put the road there.

And now people in the area can't even seem to stop to allow the baboons to cross the road -- even with three adults -- and a camera crew -- attempting to direct traffic.

What does it really say about us as a people?


And what does it say about what value we place on life?


Which led us to "Dog Gone," episode eight of the eighth season of FAMILY GUY.  The Steve Callaghan written episode revolves around the aftermath of Brian (the talking dog) running over a dog and killing that dog.  When Brian's guilt gets to him and he confesses, everyone laughs, it's not a big thing, he just ran over a dog.

In the end, to prove to Brian that his life matters, Stewie kills another dog and stages it to appear that Brian died.  The family mourns the death of Brian while Brian watches.

It says nothing about life -- and that's not a criticism of FAMILY GUY who sports its crudeness the way others might sport wit -- just about the life of a talking dog.

And while we're not going to slam FAMILY GUY for that, we are going to call out the Humane Society of the United States which gave the episode a Genesis Award.

Brian the talking dog was made to feel his life mattered by Stewi killing another dog.

That's something the so-called Humane Society wanted to reward?

And we thought about what we wrote last week.  Specifically this:



It was Sunday, CBS, 60 MINUTES.

There was Anderson Cooper interviewing professional frat boy JT Holmes.

Holmes, for those who missed it, 'needs' to go to Eiger in the Swiss Alps -- via helicopter -- to risk his life in what is not amazing and is not a sport.

More to the point, why does he need to be on Eiger?

Why is it necessary so ski (and parachute) on Eiger just because no one has?

Are we not to be allowed any spot  on the earth that is not plundered by human kind in its search for amusement?

And how long do we need to pretend that near death experiences qualify as sports?

Cooper should have asked those questions.

He also should have asked the cost of a 'sport' that requires a helicopter fly you up to a mountain, that several people use tools to create 'slopes' for you to ski down on the untouched mountain and how much it costs for the helicopter to pick you up after you jump off the cliff on your skis and hopefully land alive 2,000 or so feet below.

He should have asked what the carbon foot print for this 'sport' was.

He asked none of those questions.




All of which does not paint us, the human species, in a good light.

And in this election year where candidates for the duopoly spend every speech slashing the other and when their online gaggle can't stop playing 'the other,' it might be time for us to all dismount our high horses because clearly technology has progressed further than humanity.























Congress and Veterans

 

congress

Last week, the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee met and the most important detail from that hearing?





Senator Jon Tester:  So let me ask, and I hesitate to ask this question, you probably know the answer and I don't, is the DoD and the VA -- is their medical records streamlined?  And can they go back and forth without any problems?


Dr. David Shulkin:  I wouldn't go that far.



Barack Obama came into the White House in 2009 with the promise of creating a seamless, electronic medical record which would follow the service member from his/her first day all the way through the veteran process.

It would make things -- such as claims -- much easier for the veteran.

And as his second term winds down?

The record has still not been created.

Eight years he's had to work on this.

Eight failed years.

Just like his promise to end veterans homelessness.


For more, you can see C.I.'s report in the June 25 "Iraq snapshot."

We told you Hillary was packing on the pounds


Honored to welcome to the U.S. Capitol to meet with !










Tweet of the week



Recall: our current bombing campaign in Iraq was pitched as "limited". It's now almost 2 yrs old.










So that just leaves Jill?

Last week, Senator Bernie Sanders went on MSNBC and declared he would vote for War Hawk Hillary Clinton.


In doing so, he proved everything that Bruce A. Dixon, Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford had previously said at BLACK AGENDA REPORT.

The 'great' campaign would end with Bernie being used to steer the sheep into Hillary's fold.


They warned repeatedly.

And they were right.

But Bernie's not going to be able to herd everybody into Hillary's camp.



Sorry, Hillary, but more divides us than unites us.




No, not everyone's going to go marching into Hillary's camp.

In fact, it's going to be very hard for those who believed in what Bernie claimed he believed in to turn around stroll into Camp Hillary.


So what does that leave?





Join Kshama Sawant () & sign on to keep the Revolution going: ✊




Some will take part in the long honored American pastime of not voting -- either for president or at all.


Others may be tempted by Jill Stein's campaign for the Green Party's presidential nomination.


But it's pretty clear that Bernie Sander's announcement that he would vote for Hillary Clinton ended his campaign.



Even if Hillary is indicted, Bernie's announcement makes it unlikely he could grab the nomination.  No, his statement has pretty much cleared the path for Joe Biden to seize the nomination should Clinton get indicted prior to the convention.












But what about HOMELAND?

Students have a right to respond to films shown on their campuses.




UC Irvine's Students for Justice in Palestine might be banned from the campus after protesting Israeli army film.




But isn't it strange that when Israeli torture series are translated to American TV -- this would include HOMELAND -- we don't see the same reception?

These shows preach torture and hatred and they're part of the pathological design of a closed and paranoid society.


But somehow they get applauded when they should be condemned.







Filipovic Lusts After Hillary

Oh, Jill.

Go back to posting your bikini photos while the world burns.

Remember those days, Jilly?

Yeah, that was as close to useful as your self-promoting ass ever got.

You can sniff the butts of Greg Sargent and Matty Y and pretend you're the token in the boys club but you'll be dropped within five years.

And we'll be laughing at you even louder than we are now.

And we're laughing right now.

Vaginal voter Jill wants everyone to support War Criminal Hillary.


Reading the Bernie Sanders wish list in and... Clinton already backs almost all of this, yes?




Jill's so supportive of women.

Little factoid Jilly forgets.

Guess we're misremembering the Jill of 2006?

Guess it was someone else who  would e-mail women asking them to link to her on their blogs and she would link to them?


Someone else who counted on them not checking?

Someone else who never linked back?

Like Hillary, Jill defines feminism as "what's in it for me."

The two truly deserve each other.

You'll never find two more selfish, greedy liars.






This edition's playlist




nickjonas





1) Nick Jonas' LAST YEAR WAS COMPLICATED.


2) Ben Harper's CALL IT WHAT IT IS.



4) Tori Amos' LITTLE EARTHQUAKES.



5) Tori Amos' UNREPENTANT GERALDINES.



6) Tori Amos' BOYS FOR PELE.



9) Aretha Franklin's WHO'S ZOOMIN' WHO.








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