On Tuesday, Megyn Kelly appeared on Bill O'Reilly's program, and shocked the host with a barrage of unexpected statistics to what he clearly thought was a standard question. Look out your window and see if hell has frozen over. It all began very normally for Mr. O'Reilly, setting the background for his segment with a seemingly-objective but clearly pointed disapproval of the concept of "White privilege." Because as we know, there is no such thing as white people having an advantage over blacks. At least in FoxWorld. There, black people have all the advantages like racial quotas, and food stamps, and having their own president. He brought on Megyn Kelly, the Fox host known for making sure viewers understood that Santa Claus and Jesus Christ were both white, and made sure to point out that She is A Lawyer, and therefore a voice of authority, sure that she would come out swinging and back him up. And she did come out swinging. But backing him up? Not so much. In fairness to Ms. Kelly, though I generally don't agree with her, she does -- far more than any other host of "Fox News," other than Sheppard Smith -- occasionally challenge others on her channel when they get facts way too far wrong. And she not only challenged "others," but arguably the heart of "Fox News," Bill O'Reilly, to his clear surprise. And not just challenge, but armed with facts she researched, knowing what the topic of appearance would be. And when Mr. O'Reilly threw out an bizarre dismissal -- that he doesn't agree with the statistics (swell, fine, give me some statistics and facts of your own to explain why your random opinion trumps facts) -- she didn't humbly back off from the man who shouts at people as "PINHEAD!!", but talked over him and kept arguing her facts. I don't think this is what "Fox News" likes about "stand your ground." And even after Mr. O'Reilly made what he was no doubt sure was a definitive point to reach an accommodating agreement and put a button on things (one of those kind of, "Well, we can at least agree that..." kind of wrap-ups, even then Ms. Kelly didn't cut him any slack. Only at the very end does she through he a ridiculous bone, so that he can go out on a "win." I would love to see the off-air footage after this appearance. Perhaps Ms. Kelly's last for a while on The O'Reilly Factor, until his blood pressure returns.
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It's been a while since I had an interview from Jiminy Glick. He's the character played by Martin Short who is a fatuous interviewer (no pun intended) and brings in celebrities for real Q&A's. Real, but very off-beat. Here he is talking with Jerry Seinfeld. I was talking with a friend today, and he offhandedly said, albeit it with knowing-laugh, "If you have a spare $1,000 sitting around somewhere, we're having a fundraiser at our house with Carole King. She's raising money for..." I'll admit that my brain got fuzzy at the "$1,000" and then zoned out when he said it was with Carole King, so I wasn't completely clear on the who-for, but it was some Democratic Party organization. I did manage to say that I trusted he would get a good seat. "Oh, yes," he noted with a smile. He and his wife have started to make a pesky habit of this. In 2012, before the presidential election, he mentioned that if I was free, and happened to have another ungodly amount, they were doing a fundraiser before the Democratic National Convention with James Taylor. I have good friends, who have big back yards.... I also know not to ask for favors about squeezing me in, because I know they have lots of other friends probably pestering them about getting in. I will say, though, that I wrote earlier this year here about meeting Carole King who was attending a fundraiser which I was invited to by my aforementioned friend. As I mention in the tale, she was absolutely charming and she talked about trying to figure out the Internet so that she could check out a Carole King fan chat room, with hilarious and disastrous results. This was a much smaller fundraiser -- an intimate living room with no Carole King or James Taylor as the featured guest, only a politician, Ted Kennedy. Though he did sing! He and his wife Vicki enthusiastically did a funny parody, Anyway, in lieu of attending the fundraiser with Carole King, or the earlier one with James Taylor, here's -- well, I was going to say "the next best thing," but it's not even close. But it still is terrific, the two of them performing together. Last night on The Rachel Maddow Show, she had a story about another young black man who was shot and killed while in the custody of the police, this time in Louisiana, though it was from six months ago. Why so long ago? It's a story that an NBC investigative reporter, Hannah Rapleye, has been covering, and as you might imagine, things are not as simple as that first sentence. Two young men were walking, when they were stopped by police for a pat down, suspects in a bar fight. One of them, Victor White, has marijuana in his pocket, was arrested and handcuffed. He was searched again, and a small amount of cocaine was found. He was taken to jail,and his friend was dismissed. Victor White was later found dead of gunshot wounds. It gets worse. The police report said the gunshots were in White's back, which police said were made by Mr. White himself, from a gun police say he had, despite two pat down. And despite him being handcuffed. It gets worse. When it came time for the coroner report, the story changed. Now, it was said that the gunshots were in his chest, not his back. Hard as it may be to believe, the story gets even worse. The coroner report was death by suicide. Yes, you read that right. Somehow, Victor White, with his hands cuffed, managed to get a gun despite having had two patdowns where an actual gun was either missed or just lying around in the back seat, and shot himself. In his chest. And the coroner rule it was a suicide. And the story even gets worse still. Which doesn't really quite seem possible. There were abrasions on Mr. White's face, which police said they didn't cause. And his friend says they weren't there when the two young men were stopped. And the coroner report -- which, again remember, was death by suicide, also says that residue from the gunshot wounds were not consistent with being made from close range. But that's not the "even worse" part. It's that the police report shows no record of whether or not Victor White's hands were ever tested for residue from a gunshot, to see if he had fired a weapon. And his parents were only able to see their son from the neck up. And his body hasn't yet been released to them. It may not shock you to learn that his parents -- his father is a minister -- question the police report. Obviously, I have no evidence, proof or certainty about what happened with Victor White. All I have is a good faith guess. And I'm guessing that your guess is that, like me, events didn't happen like the police say. The other day, I wrote here of a rant written on Facebook by actor Keven Sorbo, about the "animals" in Ferguson, Missouri, for which he later apologized, explaining he was referring only to the looting and vandalizing, and it was written "out of frustration for everything that was happening in the country." While I have no doubt that Mr. Sorbo and others, especially those on the far right, are indeed frustrated by what they see on their television screens throughout the country, I can't even begin to understand the frustration by people who were born with black skin. It's not as if the unarmed shooting death by police of a surrendering Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, or the handcuffed shooting death of Victor White in police custody, or the shooting death of unarmed Trayvon Martin by a vigilante justified by a "stand your ground" law are each unique experiences. And the more stories that get reported show how not random, not the exception these shooting deaths seem to be. And these are just the few unarmed shooting death of blacks by police that we're hearing reported. And they don't even touch on the reality of being regularly stopped and suspected of crimes simply by virtue of having black skin, even when a black person is entering their own home in a neighborhood that might be considered "too nice." This is not even remotely to say that the police do a bad job, or in some cases a criminal one. It is not to say that there is horrible and tragic violence within the black community itself, or what is the cause of that. This is not about the police, almost all of whom do a remarkable job under daily threat of their lives. This is not about guns, nor is it about vigilante racists. This is not even a paltry place to try and put race relations in perspective. It is only to say -- I can't even begin to understand the frustration by people who were born with black skin. One doesn't have to look for root causes or point fingers or stand on a soap box to not sense the galling frustration that must be felt by people for whom all this isn't an occasional story that makes it on the TV news, but a daily occurrence of suspicion and awareness of death. As much "frustration" as the far right Kevin Sorbo's of the world feel at watching the news, I'm guessing it doesn't begin to come close to the anger that the black community feels at being the news and eternal suspect. At being unable to walk home unarmed and not known if you'll make it there safe, whoever it is that might shoot you -- a gang member, a stray bullet, a police officer or justified vigilante. That it is just anger or sadness or daily frustration they likely feel and not a societal explosion is, to me, stunning. So, for all the "frustration" that the Tea Party and its fellow-heartbroken deeply-reactionary supporters feel about "what's going on in the country," it's a shame that their and Mr. Sorbo's frustration towards "looting and vandalism" doesn't at least extend to some sympathy about what's going on about people being shot in the street because they're wearing a sweatshirt over their black skin. Frustrated at seeing looting and vandalism? They should feel grateful in their heartless myopia that it's not far, far worse. Here below is the full story from The Rachel Maddow Show. This Mystery Guest segment of What's My Line? surprisingly and wonderfully fits in perfectly with a couple of recent postings that began with Robert Preston and subsequently dealt with shows such as Peter Pan and mention of Cyril Ritchard. Here is Captain Hook himself as the Mystery Guest -- and as luck would have it, one of the panelists is...Robert Preston! The broadcast is from December 22, 1957, and Preston was then-appearing on Broadway in The Music Man. The TV quiz show was done on Sunday nights and broadcast live, which is when Preston's musical had no performances and therefore how he was able to be on the panel, and relates to his quip when introduced. While it's nice to have videos Autoplay on Facebook (or not, depending on your taste...), the reality is that if you're not careful they could run when you're on a cellular connection eat up your data plan for your mobile phone. It's possible to disable Autoplay directly on your mobile phone so that videos will only run when you have a WiFi connection. However, if you want to make things easy on yourself and disable Autoplay period, for everything -- whether with a cellular or WiFi connection -- you can now do so. And it's very easy. For Apple iOS devices, you can make your selection under Settings/Facebook. For Android, it's found in Settings for the Facebook app. As you can see below, you'll be given the choice of disabling Autoplay so that it runs only when you're connected to WiFi or disable it entirely. By the way, if you find that the automatic running of videos in Facebook to be annoying in general, you can also disable Autoplay for Facebook in your computer browser. Just click on Settings (which you find by clicking on the down arrow on your Facebook toolbar) and select "Video" which should be at the bottom of the list. Then, just choose "OFF" for Autoplay.
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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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