Yesterday morning, I was driving and put on MSNBC from Sirius radio. At one point, they cut away from their discussion to cover an anti-gun rally in Parkland, Florida, and one of the students there was speaking, Emma Gonzales. It was riveting, thought after a couple minutes they had to cut away for a commercial, saying they'd be back with more of the speech later. Unfortunately, they didn't get back to it -- but I sought it out online. And as great as they two minutes were, the full 7-1/2 minutes left it in the dust.
If you haven't seen this yet, take the few minutes here to do so. This high school student is gripping, powerful, moving, scathing, thoughtful, deeply-personal, furious, impactful and sarcastic as only a teenager can be, including a "Duh" and her voice filled with the sassing ridicule most-every parent knows by heart as she quotes a Trump tweet. And it all done with anger, heart, and through fighting back tears. The girl has a serious-impressive future ahead of her. Which is actually the underlying point of her blistering words, since 17 of your classmates don't. And it's clear from this speech why Trump didn't have the courage to show up at the school to address students and families there. Because he wouldn't have stood a chance against high school students like Emma Gonzales who put him to shame. And the gun corporation-owned NRA fringe terrorist organization must know that with guttural, profound voices like this, the cold-hearted pure greed of their own killing efforts have met their worst enemy. And make no mistake, this is not just Emma Gonzales. Her fellow-students at Douglas High are not only just as outraged, but have the teenage drive to act on it. And I suspect other students around the country, because they know their lives are at stake. All of which points to a "March for Our Lives" protest which they've begun to organize on March 24. But more than that, it is a comment by one of those student which shows the thoughtfulness to give the near-perfect response to the traditional response by NRA-advocates whenever there is yet another mass shooting -- "The reason we started 'March for Our Lives' and the reason we are doing this on March 24th, we’ve been hearing a lot that this is not the time to talk about gun control,” said junior Cameron Kasky. “Here’s the time to talk about gun control: March 24th. My message for the people in office is, you’re either with us or against us. We are losing our lives while the adults are playing around. "On March 24th, you are going to be seeing students in every single major city marching and we have our lives on the line,” he continued. “And at the end of the day, that is going to be what’s bringing us to victory and to making some sort of right out of this tragedy.” “This is about us begging for our lives. This isn’t about the GOP, this isn’t about the Democrats. This is about us creating a badge of shame for any politicians who are accepting money from the NRA and using us as collateral.” Yes, how noticeable that Trump didn't have the courage to speak at that school. I've written in the past that candidates should turn the financial support their opponents get from the gun corporation-owned NRA into a negative, making such people pariahs for receiving those contributions, and risks them losing votes for it, which ultimately is what has the potential of weakening the value of all that money. After all, if there's one thing politicians like more than money contributions, it's getting re-elected. Having money to spend does you no good when it is awareness of that very money that can hurt you. Whether this effort will build upon that, we'll see. But it's certainly a first step. It would be nice to think that Emma Gonzales was named after the poet whose moving words of liberty enshrine the Statue of Liberty, the statue of a woman with her arm raised in support of others. It seems unlikely, life doesn't generally write such a neatly-tied story, but whether or not there is a connection to Emma Lazarus, the historic connection offers a moving impact for all. By the way, I don't know where Emma Gonzales' ancestors are from. But although that has absolutely nothing to do with the absorbing words she speaks, the optics of it all takes her words to a another level, giving further, shredding lie to the Trump efforts to demean bringing in families who over time migrate in "chains," block immigration from places that through the years have sent their "worst," and insult countries of world populated by those who are white. The Emma Gonzaleses of the country stand tall. And she stands especially-high with them.
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We watch the Olympics all day so you don't have to.
Nice to see Nathan Chen get a bit of redemption and respectability by having one of the all-time highest scores in the men's freestyle figure skating. That's the Nathan Chen I was referring to last month when writing about the U.S. National Championship. He remarkably moved up from 17th place to 5th -- and only missed 4th place, just one spot out of the medals, by only .4 points. I'm sure he was thrilled by that redemption. I'm equally sure he's also thinking that if he'd only had a mediocre skate in the short program and finished that night as low as 6th place, which would have been a disappointment, he'd have ended up winning the Gold Medal. In fairness, if he'd been that close, there's obviously no guarantee he'd have had that "sense of redemption" push for the freestyle skate. He'd certainly have had motivation to stake great, but it would have been different, so you can't really extrapolate one result over a different situation. Sorry to see Lindsey Vonn miss out on a medal in the Super-G. It's tough skiing first, especially when they had to push the event back due to winds, so the competitors didn't have a chance to test the course. But still, she skied very well and dropped out of contention because of a mistake she made near the end. Also, this isn't her best event, which is the downhill, so that's yet to come. But bizarre and wonderful to see that everyone at the Super-G (athletes and TV alike) got flummoxed by the result. After basically anointing the winner and all the celebrating at the venue, TV cut away -- only to have to return and show on replay (!) the actual Gold Medal-winning run by an athlete no one thought had a chance, Czech snowboarder Ester Ledecka, whose highest standing in the Super-G all year was 19th. When she finished, it was a hoot to watch her expression which seemed not to comprehend the results showing that she had taken over first place. At the press conference afterwards, she left her goggles on, explaining that she hadn't expected to win, so -- unlike the other competitors -- she hadn't put makeup on earlier. I particularly like the Super-G. With the lengths and the curves of the course, you usually get an especially-great view of the mountain range as the skiers fly down. There's a problem telecasting races like skiing, the bobsled and luge and such, where you only have one person racing at a time, and they're going against the clock, rather than one another. There are a few ways that TV could help things, though -- one would be very easy and workable, the other would be great but not likely. For the first, a problem is that TV only lists the time of the skier in first place, so that's the only comparison viewers get. But three competitors are vying for the medal stand. I think TV should list the times of all three top athletes so the viewer could know that, even if the current racer didn't beat the top time, he or she might still have placed in medal contention. The other thing that TV could do is...well, actually something they already do, but only on a rare occasion. And it's great when they do it: after a race, they sometimes superimpose the leading skier going downhill over the racer who just competed. The technology works great and appears as if they're racing each other. I don't know if it's only possible to do that in short bursts when both races have been recorded, or if it could be done live for an entire race. If the latter, I'd love to see that (though I have no idea if it would be too odd and distracting). But in lieu of that, I wonder if they could do something in these sports like they do in speedskating -- and that's have a line that marks the pace of the leader, which shows in relation to the skaters on the ice. They do that live, so you can see in real time where things stand in the race. (Oddly, though it works great, they only use it on occasion.) What I don't know is if that technology only works because a skating track is a consistent oval, whereas skiing runs and a bobsled track is full of twists and turns. But I do hope they can come up with something -- if not these technologies, then something. This morning, the U.S. women had a strong chance to win their first-ever medal in cross-country skiing, with the running of the 4x5K relay. Four legs of about three miles each, with their top skier Jessie Diggins handling the anchor leg. Unfortunately, they were pretty much out of the race halfway through the first leg. Before the race, analyst Chad Salmala said that the team had to stay without about 20 seconds of the leader to be in contention. Halfway through that first leg they were already 35 seconds behind, and by the end of the leg that margin had increased to over a minute. They held that for the rest of the race, so a strong first leg might have gotten them a medal, but as Salmala noted, "It just wasn't her day." They came back a bit from the pack and ended up in fifth place (Diggins' third fifth-place finish of the Games, I believe), but it wasn't enough for the podium. However, the race not only had an exciting sprint finish, with Norway beating Sweden by under two seconds -- but it was the 13th Olympic medal by Norway's anchor Marit Bjorgen, tying her for the most medals by anyone in the Winter Games...and with this being her 7th Gold Medal, that is the most for a woman in Winter Olympic history, for any sport. I like the biathlon, another of my faves. In part because it's so odd -- shooting and skiing -- but in part because I actually find it a pure Olympic event, harkening to man's primal days of of find food in the winter, far more than any of the freestyle skiing competitions. The women's competition was enjoyable though fairly uneventful, except for one notable tidbit. Anastasia Kuzmina was born in Russia but when she was dropped off the Russian biathlon team a decade ago for not having good results, she moved to Slovakia. She won the Gold Medal. A pretty good result, by any standard. And another of these Game's "Ooops" Moments. On this week's 3rd & Fairfax podcast from the Writers Guild of America, the guests are screenwriters Virgil Williams and writer-director Dee Rees who talk about their collaboration on the acclaimed Mudbound, nominated for a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar, which currently streaming on Netflix.
We watch the Olympics all day so's you don't have to.
For the record, the NBC announcers are all knowingly pronouncing "PyeongChang" incorrectly. They're saying "Chang" as in "rang." In fact, though, it's pronounced like "awng." Chawng. NBC officials are aware of this, but they felt it would sound confusing to American audiences. On the one hand, if the Games were in Rome, they'd surely say "Rome" and not the Italian name of "Roma." On the other hand, when the Winters Olympics were in Turin eight years ago, NBC announcers usually referred to it as "Turino." That said, there's a difference between referring to a city by its name as used in the country itself, and simply pronouncing it correctly. As I've noted, I like curling. But I have my limits. And coverage of it is spreading like weeds. I understand that NBC has paid A LOT for the broadcast rights to the Games, so they feel a need to put someone on TV throughout the broadcast day. But serious, it's hard to imagine that they draw much of an audience for Sweden vs. Japan in the curling quarterfinals. The best I can figure is that NBC has learned over time that it's best to have something, anything on so that people can click on NBCsports and know that there will be Olympic coverage on, rather than have to check program guides. Though that doesn't explain carrying it on CNBC on occasion. Perhaps they get great ad rates from beer companies... During the U.S. National Figure Skating Championship, I wrote here about how amazingly great the U.S. men's champion, Nathan Chen, was. He was the two-time U.S. champion, the first to hit one particular quad in competition and was rock-sold consistent. So, it was quite a surprise when he fell repeatedly in the team competition and (after all experts said he'd be so angry at that and learn from it) fell repeatedly again in the men's short program. It wasn't a particularly good day for the U.S. Those days happen. But Mikaela Shiffrin not only didn't win a Gold Medal in her specialty, the slalom, a day after winning the Gold in the Giant Slalom, but didn't get a medal at all. And Lindsay Jacobellis, perhaps the best women's snow boarder for years, who famously crashed in the last three Olympics (including when hot dogging in a race she easily had won), finished fourth and out of the medals in what is likely her last Olympics. (Happily, she at least has one silver medal.) And as I wrote earlier, Jessie Diggins had a chance to become the first U.S. woman to win the country's first women's cross country skiing medal, and came close but finished fifth. In the ski jumping competition this morning, there was a Japanese jumper who was the oldest in Olympic history, at age 45. Apparently he's had a long and admire career, and is still capable, though his jump that I saw was far behind the leaders. It was great to see him there, though as I watched all I could think was why this is fine but officials were so outraged at "Eddie the Eagle" in 1988 and changed rules so that he (and others like him) couldn't compete. I do understand there's a difference -- this Japanese ski jumper has had an illustrious career in the sport, and Michael Edwards was brand new to the sport. And the Japanese jumper is still much better than "Eddie the Eagle" was. But neither were really especially competitive. To be clear, I'm happy to see this Japanese jumper today, he did a very solid job. I just thought the outrage at Eddie was too overwrought. Johnny Weir is still doing a good job with his figure skating commentary, but he's risking falling into the Chris Schenkel Hole. Schenkel was the long-time announcer for ABC Sports who among his many hats was the anchor for figure skating for years, despite knowing absolutely nothing about it. As a result, he was often limited to telling the audience what music was being used and how much time was left in the skate. Johnny Weir has been talking much less during skates this Olympics than ideal, and seems to take great pleasure letting us all know, "He's got a Jon Snow vibe going here with music from Game of Thrones" when he recognizes what's being played. It's borderline pointless, but I'm okay with it as long as he analyzes a bit more during skates. I'd have had more to discuss here, except for a convoluted day. Yesterday, on a long drive, a light came on my dashboard. I didn't know what it referred to until later. It turns out to concern a tire that needed air. I checked later, and one of my tires was near-flat. I filled it up with air today, and it was holding, but I wanted it checked out. So, I took it into the dealer -- the car is still under warranty -- it turns out that there's a nail in the tire. This is not concerned a Good Thing. Nor is driving on such a tire for a half-hour trip. They're in the process of fixing things, which will take a long while since I'm not first in line -- about 3-1/2 hours from door to door) hence the lack of Olympics coverage this afternoon. (Though happily I had the presence of mind to bring my laptop and a book.) Also worth noting: though the car only has 4,200 miles on it, Toyota -- and apparently most car companies -- don't guarantee tires when you buy a new car. When you replace the tire, yes, they're guarantee that, but the tires on a brand new car? Nope. Yesterday, I went to lunch at one of my favorite barbecue joints, Dr. Hogly Wogly's Tyler, Texas Barbecue, with the producer of my movie project. He and I went there in December, though we're hardly regulars. As much as I Iike the place, don't got there often because it's not convenient, and I only go maybe a couple times a year -- there have been years when I haven't made it over. And he probably hasn't been to the place in 20 years.
Anyway, when it got down to ordering, I double-checked with the waitress about how many beef ribs (my fave) come with the "Three-way dinner plate." She said three, which surprised because another waitress had said two. "Oh, that's because the last time you guys were here, you got the baby back ribs, which only come with two beef ribs. But you said you wanted the spare ribs and those get three." Say what??? I was flabbergasted. Not about the ribs. What boggled me was not just that she actually remembered us being there two months earlier...but she remembered what we ordered!!! That, ladies and gents, is a professional and talented waitress. And yes, we tipped her well. Excellence deserves recognition. Yesterday, a friend sent me an article from that day's National Review, the conservative publication started by William F. Buckley, and asked me to read it. He's not conservative himself, but there was something in it that didn't make sense to him, and he had a question.
No, I said. I had no intention of reading an article in the National Review. Just because he had driven himself loopy didn't mean I had to. I said I would read a page or two, but that was my limit. Alas, I only got about a page-and-a-half in. It was awful, made wrong assumptions, and was factually inccorrect. All in a page-and-a-half. The article, "What did Comey tell President Trump about the Steele Dossier?" was intended to be a detailed dissection of former National Security Adviser Susan Rice's emails to herself at the end of the Obama Administration and an explosive expose of what truth they supposedly uncovered. I first cringed about three paragraphs in. That's when the author had just noted that Rice's email to herself was written a full 16 days after the meeting it was intended to make an account of, and from that length of time he concluded, "An email written on January 21 to record decisions made on January 5 is not written to memorialize what was decided. It is written to revise the memory of what was decided in order to rationalize what was then done." Well, gee, that's a pretty darn-emphatic absolutely certainty for something that's not only a presumption, but also isn't true. Without breaking a sweat, it's easy to figure out other actual reasons someone might take two weeks to write such a note. For starters, a person could have initially decided that there was no need to write a "contemporaneous" memo to oneself, but two weeks later saw that conditions had changed and so it was best to do so then. Or someone said, "Did you ever take notes of that meeting?" And when answering, no, was suggested it might be a good idea to have a record of them. Now, mind you, neither of those may or may not be want happened, but it doesn't take a PhD in human nature to figure out that either are very real possibilities. Among many others. And perhaps even far-more likely than "lying to change the record." I might even offer some pop psychology that one who "lying to change the record" is the sole explanation is is someone who would do so himself. So, that was the first yellow caution light three paragraphs in. And then I stopped a page later. Didn't even make it to my two-page goal. The stopping point came when the author was setting up what events were going on around that January 5 meeting -- and then began his "Aha, gotcha!" portion of the hypothetical-expose by casting an eye around wider to notice all the other things that were taking place at the same time. He wrote -- "What else was happening? The Justice Department and FBI had gone to the FISA court on October 21, 2016, for a warrant to spy on former Trump-campaign adviser Carter Page. That warrant relied largely on the Steele dossier..." And that's when I stopped and walked away. First of all, let's be clear about something: October 21 is not "what else was happening." It's a full 2-1/2 months earlier. Four holidays passed between those days -- Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years. (And you can throw in Groundhog's Day for fun.) AND there was a national election in between, as well. "What else was happening?" Seriously, dude??? There's nothing even remotely contemporaneous about that. It's attempting to draw close connections that don't exist. But I digress, because that's not even the "bad" part. The bad part is his pointed statement that the FISA warrant relied largely on the Steele Dossier. It didn't. We factually know it didn't. And we factually know it didn't because the Devin Nunes memo actually explained that it didn't. That memo, written by as biased a Republican for Trump in the House as there may be, to levels that might be literally criminal, and approved by Trump himself, explained in detail how the FISA warrant was obtained, and the Steele Dossier wasn't even among the top reasons. At best, the parts of the dossier that had already been corroborated were used to support all the other information that had already been gathered which were the basis of the warrant. So, at that point in the article, one of its foundational points was untrue. Which makes any conclusions meaningless. And that didn't even take into consideration all the other things already wrong in it. But still, I called my friend to find out what was concerning him about the article. "What I don't understand," he said, "is that the National Review is True Conservative, and True Conservatives have no great love of Donald Trump, so what in the world is the point of this article? What are they going to great lengths trying to prove? What is the point here? It doesn't make sense to me." I thought a moment and answered -- Two things. First, there IS NO POINT to it. Don't try to find out what its "point" is. You ill drive yourself crazy trying to find a point. Stop! This is not a strands of evidence carefully tied together to prove a thoughtfully-drawn conclusion. It's an idiotic collection of random charges based on faulty presumptions. There is no point they're trying to prove. And second, if I had to dive in deep and try to divine some buried reason why this article was written, it's this: the article isn't about trying to support Trump. Indeed, True Conservatives don't like Trump at all. But far more than not liking Trump, they absolutely, gutterly hate Barack Obama with a white-hot passion. They hated Barack Obama for eight years, and they still hate him with a fury that gnaws away at their soul. And if Trump goes down in flames it makes Barack Obama look all the better. So, the article is their True Conservative attempt to do whatever they can to still try somehow to tarnish Barack Obama and try to throw mud at him in any way they possibly can. Even if they have to twist reality and facts to make up their false case. Ah, okay, my friend said. It then made sense to him. And he could rest more easily. |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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