Parkland: Students Up Against The Walls of Resistence

The worst school shooting since Columbine nearly two decades ago happened on Valentine's Day at a high school in Parkland, Florida.  Seventeen students and faculty were murdered because the suspect, who reportedly had a history of mental problems, apparently used an assault rifle to take out his frustrations on his former school.

Usually after something like this happens, we get the usual hand-wringing over how could this have happened and why isn't anything done about it, while the people in power insist "this isn't the time to talk about it" as they offer meaningless "thoughts and prayers".  The only ones who benefit from all this is the National Rifle Association.

What's different this time is that the students who were survivors of this event, having seen too many of these played out on television, are no longer interested in the status quo.  They are speaking out while mourning the loss of their peers.  They are organizing nationwide marches.  They are calling BS on the establishment.  They are calling BS on having to play the victim every time, raising their hands in the air as if they were prisoners about to be shot, or being held hostage during a lockdown.  Centers of learning shouldn't be centers of incarceration.

These students are following in the footsteps of their parents and grandparents who protested the Vietnam War.  Back then, they shut down universities and burned their draft cards to show their displeasure at a conflict no one really understood.  All that got them was more years of war and "four dead in Ohio".

The Parkland high school students will be facing a number of walls on the road to firearm sanity.  Not just President Donald Trump's wall, but also the wall of the NRA and its bought-off politicians who brush aside any meaningful gun reform, and the wall of public attitudes among Second Amendment zealots who believe gun control meaning they have to give up theirs so only the police and the bad guys have them.

There's also the wall of skeptics who think this wave of student activism is really a bogus plot by liberals to get more Democrats in Congress in November.  They point to how the FBI allegedly botched its surveillance on the shooting suspect.  How's gun control doing in Chicago, they say, which has the nation's highest crime rate?  Or how many abortions have been performed when compared to gun deaths.  Or why we should believe teenagers who have made Tide Pods detergent part of their diets?

The skeptics will also point to how there's been 18 mass shootings in 2018 alone.  If that's true, then how come we haven't heard about any of them?  Also, if you want armed guards and pistol-packing teachers in school, who's going to pay for them?  And how long will it be before somebody blames all this on the Russians?

We wish the students of Parkland, Florida, and all the other survivors of gun violence--whether it occurs in public or behind closed doors--the best in convincing our lawmakers to rein in those weapons and the individuals who use them to commit murder.  But Rome wasn't built in a day.  These students will be well into adulthood before the walls of skepticism and doubt come tumbling down, and their kids won't be cowering under their desks waiting for the all clear sign.

Trump Marches On

President Donald Trump wants a military parade, just like the ones that have been held in Paris and other, less democratic world capitals.  He wants to show off America's military might on the streets of Washington (or failing that, New York) in front of flag-waving, adoring onlookers who aren't too concerned that this country is still involved in a war (see: Afghanistan) or that the President himself doesn't have a service background.  He'll get his parade, damn the cost and the appropriateness, because he can.

Whether Trump is aware of this or not, he's already the grand marshal of several parades that have been coming in and out of Washington since he took office.  Most of them are not the kind where he can cover himself in glory.

• The parade of staffers coming into and out of the White House, due to either incompetence or the need to save their own hides.  The latest is Rob Porter, who quit his job as a staff secretary after reports of alleged domestic violence surfaced.  Trump is defending him as much as he's defending his chief of staff John Kelly, who has offered to resign.  The President has been saying that only the best people would be working for him.  Those are hard to find anywhere, let alone the White House.
• The parade of debt the country owes that continues as we speak.  Even though Congress finally passed a compromise bill that will spare us any more government shutdown drama at least until next year, they now have to consider the President's request for more money to fund the military, the country's crumbling infrastructure and that wall of his along the U.S.-Mexico border.  Which leads us to what Trump hopes will be . . . 
• The parade of undocumented workers and their children across the border to go back to wherever they came from.  After several false starts, Congress is finally ready to discuss the merits of keeping DACA, also known as the so-called "dreamers" act, in place.  Trump wants to keep some elements of immigration reform that doesn't involve a one-way ticket out of the country, but that's only if he makes some kind deal that'll appease both Republicans and Democrats.  And the likelihood of that happening is . . . ?
• The parade of evidence against Trump and his aides in the 2016 Russian election scandal.  As much as the President wishes special prosecutor Robert Mueller would wrap up his investigation and let him get on with his life, the budget calls for more money to let Mueller continue his probe into 2019.  That gives Trump plenty of time to figure out new ways to discredit Mueller, including releasing the classified GOP-written memo claiming biases inside the FBI, but not releasing the Democrats' top-secret rebuttal.  And to always come this close to firing Mueller without the lawyers holding him back.
• The parade of supporters in and out of the Republican party who are deserting Trump, either by denouncing his actions or by not running for another term in Congress.  Granted, the parade is a mere trickle compared to the millions who still think Trump is the greatest thing since sliced bread.  As long as the President admires dictators who throw military parades to boost their own egos, as well as enabling men who've had histories of sexual violence and harassment against women (it takes one to know one), he can ride that support all the way to the 2020 presidential election while the GOP crumbles and the Democrats field a weak candidate.

By then, of course, President Trump won't need parades.  He'll sign executive orders declaring his birthday to be a national holiday, and to replace Benjamin Franklin on the $100 bill.  Because he can.

The Olympics in South Korea. What Could Go Wrong?

Pyeongchang, the host for the 2018 Olympic Winter Games, is in a mountainous region near the eastern coast of South Korea.  It is 110 miles southeast of the national capital of Seoul (which hosted the 1988 Summer Games), takes two hours by train to get there, and is 15 hours ahead of the United States.  Seoul itself is not far from the North Korean border, where a state of war has been frozen in place since the fighting stopped in 1953.

Tensions have been ratcheted to the point where North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has all but promised to not only invade its southern neighbor, but to launch nuclear weapons on Japan and the United States (We don't need to tell you how much President Donald Trump is not helping the situation).  But in a rare gesture of making nice with the enemy, Kim has decided to send some of his athletes to compete with the South as a unified team.  After the Olympics, of course, they'll go their separate ways.

Athletes from all over the world are coming to Pyeongchang, but Russia will not.  At least not officially.  The International Olympic Committee banned them from the Winter Games for violations of their anti-doping program.  But 168 Russian athletes (at last count) are coming anyway as members of Olympic Athletes from Russia (OAR), minus their own flag and national anthem.  And 28 more might come because their bans were overturned in court for lack of evidence.  Of course, there's this burning question:  If Russian President Vladimir Putin could influence an American presidential election, what could he possibly do with Olympic results?

Players from the National Hockey League aren't here, either.  The NHL didn't want to shut down their regular season just so they could travel thousands of miles to risk their stars getting injured, or try to interest a country that's not interested in ice hockey.  So the men's tournament will go on with college kids and minor leaguers making up the rosters, bringing the quality of play down to 1992 levels.  Or you can watch the women's tournament instead, where you can expect Canada and the United States to compete for gold once more.

NBC and its family of networks will broadcast hundreds of hours of these Olympics.  What's different this time is that Mike Tirico has replaced Bob Costas as host of the prime time coverage, which will now be seen live coast to coast.  What won't change is the way NBC sees the Olympics, which is more like an extended version of the "Today" show with a dash of "This Is Us" thrown in.  What frustrates viewers is that, with all the feel-good profiles and other trivia, you never get the sense that you're watching an event.  Instead, you're just watching a typical prime time TV show geared toward women, which advertisers covet

For the next two weeks, the athletes will be taking center stage in the mountains of South Korea, winning medals, hearts and endorsement deals.  But there's always the chance of an interloper to ruin things, be it someone who's faked a clean drug test or a drone attack from the North.  The world is watching.  Be on your best behavior.  And have a good time.

SOTU: Will You Still Believe This Tomorrow?

After a year of controversy and upheaval, President Donald Trump made his first State of the Union address Tuesday before a joint session of Congress and a worldwide TV audience.

For nearly an hour and a half, the President talked of unity in a divisive time, hope in a country that desperately needed it, and pet projects like spending billions on the nation's crumbling infrastructure.  He talked of bringing the best and the brightest to these shores--provided they were born here and not from some terrorist haven, while insinuating that some of those so-called "dreamers" are actually violent criminals like the members of the MS-13 gang from New York City.

Trump interrupted his speech from time to time to acknowledge the people he used as product placements to highlight his agenda (the Democrats did the same thing).  Then he went back to boasting about his "accomplishments" during the past year, some of which (like tax reform) he actually had something to do with.  He also kept it civil, avoiding the insults and name calling that marked his past public comments.

The Republicans in the audience responded to nearly everything Trump said with enthusiastic standing ovations worthy of a game show, while the Democrats in the room mostly sat stone-faced on their hands.  The President's constant hand-clapping into the microphones sounded like a faucet dripping in the middle of the night.

Even before the speech, people in Washington were wondering how long Trump's conciliatory rhetoric would last after it was over.  All it takes to burn it down is an errant tweet or three, an offhand remark caught on camera when he thought no one was listening, or just reacting to something he saw on Fox News.

Of course, the things Trump chose not to talk about in his speech are the ones that are thus far defining his presidency.  Such as the ongoing Russian investigation, with the New York Times reporting that the President tried to fire special prosecutor Robert Mueller last summer, until his lawyers talked him out of it.  Or his battle with Congress over whether to make public classified documents of how the FBI is handling the investigation, while their deputy director Andrew McCabe abruptly quits.  Or the alleged payments made to porn actress Stormy Daniels to cover up her reputed affair with Trump.  Or that his approval ratings are hanging around 40 per cent.

President Trump can paint a rosy picture of the kind of America he'd like to see, and take as much credit for it as he possibly can.  The truth is that the state of this union is divided and anxious, wondering how they're going to survive with a man like this at the helm.

The Grammys 2018: Random Thoughts

Here's what we thought of the 60th Grammy Awards, which were held Sunday night at New York's Madison Square Garden.  Prepare yourselves.

• Wasn't this supposed to be the year the Recording Academy (the new name for NARAS) was going to give Latin and hip hop music its due, with the most diverse lineup of nominations ever for its major awards?  Instead, we get past Grammy fave Bruno Mars, sweeping the top three awards for Song of the Year with "That's What I Like", and Record and Album of the Year for "24K Magic".
• To understand the Grammys' state of mind (with apologies to Billy Joel and Jay-Z), you have to consider how the Academy made the decision to reward Mars instead of someone else.  Our theory:  (A) Taylor Swift's new album wasn't eligible to be nominated this year,  (B)  The voters were probably as sick of "Despacito" as you were, and (C) Would you want to reward your top honor to an album titled "Damn"?   At least Kendrick Lamar was able to take home Best Rap Album for that one.
• Alessia Cara was named Best New Artist.  She also happened to be the only woman to receive a Grammy during the three-and a-half hour CBS telecast.  Janelle Monae called out the music industry for its sexism.  Kesha performed an emotional version of "Praying", her account of  the abuse (sexual and otherwise) she endured--allegedly--at the hands of her record producer.  Academy president Neil Portnow responded to all this by saying women need to "step up" if they want to get ahead in this business.  Like the rest of the entertainment industry, alarm bells have been ringing over the treatment of women and the lack of opportunities that don't involve the casting couch, and they're right to be mad as hell about it.  It's just that the men who've been running the show have been hitting the snooze bar once too often.
• It was a bad night for the "shut up and sing" crowd.  Shout-outs for the #MeToo movement, a commercial disguised as a song promoting a suicide hotline, and a skit of celebrities reading excerpts form Michael Wolff's book "Fire and Fury" including Hillary Clinton were sprinkled through the telecast, with mixed results.  Besides United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, who criticized the skit, was anyone at the White House watching?  
• Classic rockers Sting and U2 came aboard to lend their expertise to the proceedings, as well as to help increase the Boomer TV audience.  So did Elton John, whose "Tiny Dancer" duet with former wild child Miley Cyrus drew positive reviews.  As most of you know, Sir John recently announced his retirement from touring, only to spend the next couple of years performing around the world.  It sounds like one of those movies where the cop or crook who is about to retire gets conned into doing one last job before riding off into the sunset.  What could go wrong?
• James Corden hosted the Grammys for the second consecutive year, and only because he happens to host a late night CBS chat show.  Nineteen million of you watched the awards, which were the lowest in a decade.  Come back, LL Cool J.  All is forgiven.

Trump, Year 2: Digging a Deeper Hole

The following post contains strong language. 

President Donald Trump has been declared fit and healthy by a doctor who's fortunate enough to still have a medical license as he enters his second year in the White House.  Never mind that the President eats too much junk food, plays lots of golf at courses he owns, and considers himself a "very stable genius" whenever questions are raised about his mental health from reporters and anyone who's read the book "Fire and Fury".

Instead, Trump has made the rest of America wonder about the country's mental health under his watch.  Sure, the economy is booming.  But there is enough unrest and divisiveness going on in and out of Washington to make anyone less than sane.

Right now, there's a dispute over whether or not Trump actually referred to certain places in Africa and the Caribbean as "shithole countries" that send their refugees to this country, while at the same time wondering why they couldn't be hardworking white people like those in Norway,  This was allegedly uttered during negotiations with both Democratic and Republican party leaders on what to do with DACA, the program designed to help those born to undocumented parents in this country to stay here.  Since there is no recorded evidence of what the President actually said, we have to go on the word of those who were in the room with him.

No matter if what Trump said was accurate, it just confirms what we've known all along:  The President is a race-baiting isolationist who can't seem to get out of his own way.  And America's reputation suffers because of it.

There's also Trump's ongoing war of words with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, in which the two have resorted to boasting about the size of their respective buttons used to launch a nuclear war.  All this penis-swinging has resulted in somebody hitting the wrong button to warn Hawaiians of a missile attack, leading to the kind of panic not seen in America since Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast in 1938.  Next time, it might not be a drill.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, already on thin ice with Trump, has started his own war on states who have legalized the sale of medical and recreational marijuana.  It's still against federal law, but considering how much people have changed their minds about the benefits of weed, this is like closing the barn door after the animals have escaped.

Did we forget to mention the Russian election-hacking investigation?  Steve Bannon, who left his Breitbart job soon after he dared to criticize Trump and his family in "Fire and Fury", is now telling as much as possible to special prosecutor Richard Mueller--whose own status is being discredited by the GOP and the White House.

All this comes under the threat of a government shutdown, which would be quite a feat since the GOP controls both houses of Congress and the presidency.  You might be wondering why the GOP doesn't lift a finger when it comes to Trump's occasional abuses of power, even at the risk of losing their seats come November.  Because he's family.  And families have to stick together through thick and thin.

Barring nuclear war or impeachment, Trump will keep trying to make America great again for the next three years.  What he might end up doing is to turn a once-proud nation into a . . . really big hole.

2017: The Year We Wished Was Fake News

And so 2017 nears its end.  A year of fear, loathing and partisanship that caused protests, investigations, resignations and the truth depends on which side you're on.  A year of pullouts from climate change and trade agreements, plus travel bans on immigrants from certain countries, making America great only to those who could afford it.  Hurricanes in the southeast and wildfires in the west just added to the misery.  The specter of nuclear war, something we thought we'd never see again, reared its ugly head.  But hey, the economy's booming!

The catalyst for all this, of course, is President Donald Trump.  His inability to leave well enough alone shows in his tweets and public statements, whether it's about Hillary Clinton, the media, the legacy of his predecessor Barack Obama, the NFL, or whatever Fox News considers important.

Recently, Trump shook up the Middle East with his decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and to move the American embassy there, which makes a major terrorist attack on this country all the more possible.  And the one victory in Congress the President can claim this year is the new tax law, which would not only give rich Americans a bigger cut, but also send the federal deficit over a trillion dollars.

Trump might also think Obamacare is dead with the repeal of the individual mandate (included in the tax bill), which says that you either get health insurance or you face paying a penalty.  For younger people who thought nothing bad would ever happen to them, it was an easy choice--unless they got sick or had an accident.  So this was one part of the Affordable Care Act that was worth losing.  But dead?  Look at the number of folks who signed up for insurance during the enrollment period, which got no promotion whatsoever.

If there's one thing that will continue to dog Trump in the new year, it's the ongoing investigation into Russia's alleged hacking of the 2016 presidential election and whether the Current Occupant had anything to do with it.  As this enters a critical phase, the President is tweeting his displeasure over its handling by special prosecutor Robert Mueller and the FBI.  There is the feeling that, as we get closer to the truth, Mueller might fly too close to the sun and Trump finds an excuse to either fire him, or pardon those who are either already under indictment or are about to spill the beans.

Trump also stands accused of sexual harassment in words and deeds, but he's likely to fare better than the other guys who lost their careers since Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein got their comeuppance from women who suffered in silence for years and couldn't take it any more.  Some examples:  Christopher Plummer is getting rave reviews in the film "All The Money In the World" as the emergency replacement for Kevin Spacey, who also lost his role on TV's "House of Cards".  Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" was replaced on radio by "Live From Here" with Chris Thile.  Minnesota's Lieutenant Governor Tina Smith will replace Al Franken as the state's U.S. Senator.  And still no word on who's replacing Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose on morning TV.

The biggest trend in TV is the rise of streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu, caused by people who didn't want to pay extra for channels they don't watch.  Now that net neutrality is history (pending court decisions), it will be interesting to see if those same people come crawling back to cable once streaming becomes less convenient and more expensive.

Because of streaming, whether you watch or listen to it, a number of media companies had the urge to merge in 2017.  There's the AT&T-Time Warner combo, of course, though the Trump administration is doing all it can to derail the deal because the news channel they hate--CNN--is involved.  Disney is buying up most of the assets in Fox, except for its broadcast network, TV stations, and news and sports channels.  Sinclair Broadcasting, which already owns more TV stations than anybody else, wants to add Tribune's to its portfolio, meaning that iconic stations like WGN in Chicago, WPIX in New York and KTLA in Los Angeles will soon be spouting the Trump/GOP line on its newscasts.  And CBS is getting out of the radio business after 90 years, selling its local stations to Entercom.

Those who did not make it past 2017 include . . . Dorothy Mengering, Lola Albright, Chuck Barris, Barbara Hale, Heather Menzies, Dick Enberg, Jim Nabors, Rance Howard, David Cassidy, Della Reese, Mel Tillis, Liz Smith, Fats Domino, Robert Guillaume, Y.A.Tittle, Tom Petty, Monty Hall, Hugh Hefner, Harry Dean Stanton, Jay Thomas, Jerry Lewis, Dick Gregory, Glen Campbell, Sam Shepard, June Foray, Martin Landau, Stephen Furst, Adam West, Frank Deford, Gregg Allman, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Roger Moore, Roger Ailes, Chris Cornell, Powers Boothe, Jonathan Demme, Erin Moran, John Geils, Don Rickles, Jimmy Breslin, Chuck Berry, Joni Sledge, Robert Osbourne, Joseph Wapner, Bill Paxton, Norma McCorvey, Al Jaurreau, Richard Hatch, John Hurt, Mary Tyler Moore, Eugene Cernan, William Peter Blatty, Chester Bennington, Malcolm Young, Ann Wedgeworth, Bernie Casey, Don Williams, Walter Becker, Glenne Headly, Cuba Gooding Sr., Mike Conners, Miguel Ferrer, Roger Erickson, Bill Diehl, Johnny Canton, Chuck Lilligren, Ray Christensen, Johnny Bower, Dick Orkin and Rose Marie.

Who or what will survive 2018?  Stay tuned.