CSotD: Whited sepulchres and other delights
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As Jeff Stahler (AMS) notes, the writers’ strike in Hollywood has been settled and, as he also notes, that doesn’t mean that Paddy Chayefsky and Rod Serling are being loosed upon the TV studios once more.
It also doesn’t mean that I’ll be any less aghast watching the promos during football for the next little while. It’s my chance to find out what appalling drivel is being shown on Prime Time TV, which, during the strike, meant that, instead of predictable sitcoms and shows in which fierce police officers snap at each other and point their guns, I saw promos for stunt shows in which regular folks do stupid things for big bucks.
Which left several questions, like whether any of the panelists or contestants on “The Masked Singer” are members of the Screen Actors Guild, since SAG is still on strike, and how CBS had the nerve to assure us that reruns of Yellowstone were a great leap forward in quality entertainment?
Anyway, pending approval from membership, the writers are back and now they just need non-union sock puppets to read the scripts until SAG gets its end of things resolved.
In the meantime, why not read a book?
If you can find one.
I like that Ann Telnaes differentiates between a “ban” and a “restriction,” because there’s a huge difference between getting rid of a book and sticking it behind the counter, though I wouldn’t be surprised if a 13-year-old were reluctant to ask the librarian for a title that might reveal what they were insecure about, assuming they even knew the book existed.
Telnaes is right: We’re verging on a real-life enactment of Fahrenheit 451, and telling Mildred Montag to ignore the writers strike and read a book is like telling a penguin to fly.
Now Dear Leader has tweeted that, if re-elected, he’ll do to television what his minions are doing to libraries, perhaps somewhat along the lines of his additional recommendation of executing military leaders who support and defend the Constitution.
They may be clowns, but they are clowns with flamethrowers.
Speaking of clowns …
Slyngstad, Markstein, Alcaraz and Rogers are not the only cartoonists to respond to the uproar over Senator Fetterman’s hoodies by contrasting him with legislative clowns, though Markstein and Rogers properly note that it is in the House that we find the real clowns, including one who apparently has as much trouble finding his suit coat as he did noticing sexual abuse in his lockerroom.
Apparently, Michael Ramirez (Creators) got the “Everybody Draw a Clown!” memo but didn’t read it all the way through.
Meanwhile, the Senator in question may disagree on how to dress in Congress, but he’s got a grasp of how his colleagues might better set their priorities:
And another thing …
Prickly City (AMS) has it right that it’s absurdly early to care about the polls, as noted by Jennifer Rubin in the link I furnished earlier. However, as she also says, it’s the fault of lazy media with their horserace coverage and their inability to adapt to a changing landscape that we’re having this foolishness splashed in our faces.
Even her own editors aren’t listening, and it’s not just the Washington Post playing this tired game.
The New York Times ran coverage of polls so off the rails that the story ran without a byline, a clue that the original reporter may have been appalled either by the assignment or the result of the editing process.
It’s an unusual move. In 49 years of professional writing, I’ve only demanded that my byline be withheld once, which was once too often, as is this.
As for the polls themselves, they’re likely a measure of elderly people with landlines, which is one part of the issue.
The other is that, if you keep telling people that broccoli tastes bad, you’ll wind up with a significant number of people who refuse to even try it and who, if asked, will confirm that they hate the stuff.
On a related note, Phil Hands posted this cartoon when the GOP was demanding Hunter Biden be sent to jail for improper acquisition of a firearm, which, as I noted then, was an odd stance for a party generally opposed to restrictions on gun ownership.
Now it’s taken on extra irony, since one of Trump’s flacks posted a Tweet and video of Dear Leader allegedly buying a Glock — or saying he wanted to — but then, realizing that Trump can’t legally buy a gun while he’s awaiting trial on a felony, attempted to make the story disappear.
Which, as we all know, you can’t do anymore.
Leading to our ….
Juxtaposition of the Day
Progressives are pointing out that Democrats clean out their ranks while Republicans defend their lawbreakers and reprobates.
It’s not exactly a reason to spike the football in the end zone, given that Robert Menendez is a well-placed, powerful Democratic Senator and it looks like he’ll be headed for the hoosegow. But it’s still a difference between the parties.
Al Franken remains the poster child for this, driven from the Senate by his own party for a sophomoric gag photo from years ago, but if that was a case of being overly sensitive, the issue with Menendez is too egregious to be ignored.
It’s not as bad, perhaps, as hatching a plot to overturn the results of a federal election, but obviously no political party, no matter how corrupt and degraded, could overlook something like that.
I will confess that I did not watch Merrick Garland’s appearance before the House Committee on Screaming at Witnesses the other day, but I gather it went much as Nick Anderson (Counterpoint) depicts it.
I’ve quit watching these content-free exhibitions because they never seem to be anything except grandstanders carving out “Look How Tough I Am!” sound bites.
Which then enter the echo chamber to be amplified by cartoonists, Dana Summers (Tribune) being one of several who condemned Garland without bothering to back their accusations with examples.
But I did listen to an excruciatingly delightful autopsy of Garland’s appearance in this Bulwark Podcast with Charlie Sykes and Lawfare’s Ben Wittes, in which they examine that hearing in particular, plus the overall phenomenon of performative posturing by political hacks who are supposed to have serious duties.
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