This is a video from James Corden's show about an afternoon he spent with Prince Harry, taking him around Los Angeles. And though It's just the two of them, they figure out a clever way to get Meagan Markle in there, as well. It appears to have been doing this past February, or thereabouts, but before the Oprah interview aired. It's very enjoyable, often quite funny, but there's also a real, thoughtful interview mixed in amongst it all. And it ends with a finale that's a great deal of fun.
5 Comments
Once again yesterday, Press Secretary Jen Psaki called on Peter Doocy of "Fox News" who asked yet another pudding-headed attempt at a gotcha question, and failed miserably as she politely explained why his question was empty and without meaning in the real world.
This one from Doocy junior was a several-parter, but the core of it was to find out why-oh-why the Biden administration hadn't ignored the World Health Organization just do its own investigation on how the COVID-19 coronavirus came about. Her once-again polite response began with a quintessential Psaki-like comment of deep understatement: "I think you're misunderstanding how this process actually works," she explained. And then went into detail how the international community and investigations work, noting that they need access "to the underlying data and information in order to have that investigation." And that they have been trying to get it. Doocy, being Doocy, wasn't able to see the train wreck heading his way, nor did he follow the famous dictum of Abraham Lincoln, "Better to remain silence and be thought a fool than speak and remove all doubt." So, he went on, and several more questions, culminating in -- "So, is there any amount of casualties from COVID in this country that would make you want to not wait for an international effort and just do it?" (Forgetting that Ms. Psaki had already explained the need for getting access to the information the World Health Organization has, even by Doocy Standards this latter was too much for me, so I sent him a note on social media,. "So, to rephrase your question -- "Are there any amount of casualties from COVID in this country that would make you want to" ask why Trump & the GOP & "Fox News" minimized the threat -- as being merely like flu -- and the use of masks that helped lead to those 600,000 casualties?") But this all got me wondering, since these inane DoocyQuestions and kindly school marm replies from Jen Psaki seem to happen almost every day, with corresponding, and entertaining, if head-numbing, videos. What I find bewildering is why Ms. Psaki seems to call on him every...single...day. Since she knows he's going to ask some smarmy and utterly infantile question that she'll have to smack down albeit politely. I know he's with "Fox News" and if she doesn't call on him, they and the far right will cry in outrage. But just calling on him every other day -- not "blackballing" him entirely -- would seem to be acceptable, to show you aren't ignoring him. But the other thought is that she calls on him intentionally. Knowing that he is going to ask an unearthly stupid question which will be brain-dead easy for her to answer -- usually with, "That's not how things work, let me explain..." And there will be footage of it, and the footage will get out, and it will make her look kindly and endearing and smart, and make him look like a churlish clod out far of his depth, And further, she can prepare for what he's going to ask, since he's so blatantly transparent and limited in his perspective. While I think that Option A -- this is "Fox News" and she sort of has to call him -- is the most likely reason under normal conditions, I sort of think that Option B may have more weight than one would otherwise presume. At least I hope it does... If you missed Last Week Tonight with John Oliver last night, the Main Story was about sponsored content. This might not sound like much, but it refers to what are basically paid aids during news broadcasts that masquerade as real news reports or interviews. The story is very interesting and fun -- albeit galling, especially when pointing out the dangers of this being abused. But stick around for the end, because the show does something it hasn't done this substantively in a long time. I started to explain more, but realized that much of the fun is discovering it when it comes along. It's wonderful -- and very funny. Yesterday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Q-Neptune) got into a sort of one-way Twitter snit fit with Robert Reich who had called for her to be expelled from Congress. She began by saying that she didn't know who she was, but saw that he taught at Berkeley in his Twitter biography, so that told her all she needed to know that he was a communist teacher at a Chinese communist university funded by Chinese communists. And all he ever did was teach and not put in the hard work to build the economy. And then she left another tweet after people chided her for misspelling "Berkeley" and corrected it, while adding "really who cares" and then posted a chart from the dailycal.org website which she said showed a step increase in money raised from China in 2017 to "heavily fund" the school, reaching about $4 million that year. Needless-to-say, a few things. I don't mind if someone misspells a word. What's hilarious is that in her initial tweet to Robert Reich, the first thing she wrote was a correction of him misspelling her last name (which left off the final "e"). So, apparently when it's someone else misspelling her name, we should "care" about misspellings -- first and foremost -- but when she does the misspelling, "who really cares"? But more to the point, to not know who Robert Reich is...that's not a good thing, most especially for someone in Congress. After all, far beyond "just" teaching (which is a pretty good thing, particularly when it's at UC Berkeley), he has worked in three presidential administrations and was the Secretary of Labor in the Clinton cabinet. So, as for putting in the "hard work" to build the economy, that's about as high up on the "hard work to build the economy" list as one can get. As she was unaware of all that. It sort of discredits a person right at that point -- that Ms. Greene passed that Point of Being Discredited long ago. But then there was that chart. And to be clear, as far as I can tell, that dailycal.org seems a respectable website. They describe themselves on the site as "an independent student newspaper and the paper of record for the city of Berkeley." And it seems well-written and researched. In fact, the chart that Ms. Greene linked to has a detailed article about the financial study. And not only does the article make clear that the $4 million in donations come from both Chinese and Chinese Americans (the latter of whom are, actually, American), but it also quotes Stewart Kwoh, head of the Global Chinese Philanthropic Initiative's executive committee, whose goal is to study patterns of Chinese and Chinese American philanthropy. Mr. Kwoh talks about the Chinese and Chinese American people they've profiled and says that this group "truly believed that higher education was the pathway to success, so they really wanted to invest in the school that gave them success. There’s also been big growth in business success and professional success, so many of those people are now able to give back to their community.” So, yeah, as far as dastardly Chinese influences goes -- including from Americans -- wanting to support education in America seems a pretty good thing. But more to the point, I did a little research, because it struck me as wrong-headed to think that $4 million would possibly "heavily fund" any university, but especially one as notable as UC Berkeley. And this research took me about a whopping 45 seconds to find. And one of the first results of this incredibly easy-to-find search turned out to be from that very same dailycal.org website! And it was yet another chart -- and article -- about all the money that UC Berkeley raised that same year of 2017 when the Chinese -- and Chinese Americans -- "heavily funded" (in Ms. Greene's words) the school with $4 million dollars. In 2017, the school raised $569 million!!! Yes, really. Don't believe me? Okay, here's the chart -- So, the $4 million that UC Berkeley raised from Chinese -- and Chinese Americans -- works out to about .07% of the school's fundraising that year. As far as "heavily funding" goes, that qualifies for getting a plaque on a bench behind the freshman dorms. This literally took me about 45 seconds to find. On pretty much every level, Marjorie Taylor Greene's snit-fit with Robert Reich was idiotic and discredited down to its foundation and who cares? typos. Now, I know that calling Ms. Greene idiotic is old news and stating the obvious. But because she has such a loud, ongoing voice, and mostly because the other elected Republican's in Congress refuse to criticize her or hold her accountable (even when last week -- and this is true -- she compared Nancy Pelosi's House vaccination rules to be the equivalent of the Holocaust), then I think it is not only acceptable, but necessary to repeat it at every reasonable chance you get. Because this is not about Marjorie Taylor Greene. This is about the elected members of the Republican Party in Congress who enable her QAnon conspiracy fascism and are complicit.
On this week’s ‘Not My Job’ segment of the NPR quiz show Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, the guest is singer/songwriter Michelle Zauner who performs as ‘Japanese Breakfast.’ She talks with host Peter Sagal about her acclaimed memoir, Crying in H Mart. And among other things explains how despite the name ‘Japanese Breakfast,” she is actually half-Korean. Their conversation is low-key, but thoughtful and interesting.
|
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
Archives
May 2024
Categories
All
|
© Copyright Robert J. Elisberg 2024
|