We have another Kennedy Center Honors, this from 2014 honoring Tom Hanks. The opening is extremely funny opening -- in fact, you may have seen it as a standalone bit, but this is what it's from. David Letterman also serves as a very good host. As for the entertainment section, it's always difficult doing entertainment for actors, but they do a respectable job here. (One gnawing quibble – at one point there’s a tap dance, and it should have been on a big keyboard, like in Big. You’ll see what I mean. All I could think was what a blown, obvious opportunity that the audience would have cheered.) But what leaps out most is the very nice film bio and what joyful clips. (All the better since four clips are used from my fave, the flop Joe vs. the Volcano – three are him dancing on a raft in the ocean.)
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Last month, I saw a Tweet from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), which simply said, “NO VACCINE MANDATES.”
My immediate reaction was, well, gee, that’s pretty general. None, zero?? Like no vaccine mandates that require children get vaccinated almost immediately upon their birth and for viruses like chicken pox, measles, mumps, rubella polio Hepatitis A, diphtheria, and more (in fact, there are 10 vaccines) that are required before a child can get into public school? None? Really? That cuts a pretty wide and irresponsibly dangerous swath. After all, about 90% of children in the U.S. have been vaccinated for most of those diseases. So, you can understand why I thought that it was really, seriously overreaching – even by Republican Party levels -- in an effort to pander to the far-right crowd whining about the COVID vaccination that is likely saving millions of lives around the world. Hyperbole is a problematic thing when you don’t realize what you’re saying. Well, silly me. I keep forgetting how low the Republican Party can sink. Three weeks ago, the Washington Post had an article by Felicia Sonmez, Marianna Sotomayor and Mariana Alfaro titled, “GOP condemnation of Biden coronavirus mandate fuels concern other vaccine requirements could be targeted.” So, yeah, Republicans now are actually, sort of talking about all vaccines. Among those quoted in the article were Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) who sent out a that “vaccine mandates are unAmerican!” (Keep in mind that Mr. Banks is the same person who said that every Republican has a “duty” to punish congressman investigating the January 6 insurrection, to “get them as far away from positions of power as you can.” So, y’know, you can adjust your perspective on what is un-American when it comes to Jim Banks “standards.”) What more stood out, though, was a comment from Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health – “The 20th century was a century of incredible progress against leading killers, and much of that progress was because of vaccinations. If we turn our back on vaccines at this moment where vaccines are really having a scientific heyday . . . I think that would be tragic, and it would cause a lot of unnecessary suffering and death, particularly among children.” But I particularly liked an additional, stark comment he added: “Why would we want to roll back the miracles of modern medicine? That defies the kind of logic of where we should be heading as a country.” He’s right, it does indeed defy logic. And public safety. But meet today’s Republican Party. We passed “defying logic” and public safety long, long ago. Which brings us to yesterday, when a Republican (of course…) state senator in Florida (of course) Manny Diaz, who is chair of the Health Policy Committee (oh, dear heavens, God help us, but yes, of course) called for all vaccine mandates to be reviewed, including polio, mumps, and rubella. So, yeah, Florida and vaccine can actually get worse. Go figure. That said, and as gallingly idiotic and dangerous as this kind of thinking is (and I use that word advisedly), I think it will backfire very badly if they do go ahead with this review in Florida. Keep in mind that the Republican "complaint" about COVID-19 mandates is there's not a long record with COVID-19 vaccines to justify a mandate. But if they’re going to “review” polio, mumps and rubella – and others, I assume -- there's a half-century of data showing wide-use, remarkable efficacy and thorough safety. So, when those results are presented, it certainly will do zero to help Republican COVID-19 vaccine mandate claims, and can only hurt them. Still, opening the door and going down this twisted, pathetic path is foolish, empty, dangerous and mind-numbingly wrong-headed. Because it shows your thinking (and again, I use that word advisedly) and priorities. It shows a questioning of facts and proven science that protects society, all to create doubt. Which is one of the foundations of fascism. I don’t know if they actually will go ahead with this review in Florida. Or in some other Republican state. I only know that this is who today’s Republican Party is. And facts don’t matter, the truth doesn’t matter, public safety doesn’t matter, and the Common Good doesn’t matter. What matters to today’s Republican Party is trying to get power – even if they don’t have a clue what to do with it for the public good whenever they get it. From the fine folks at The Dodo, here's a wonderful story about Emma and a horse named Mikko, who only trusts Emma. We send this out to the inveterate Chris Dunn, who should appreciate it for a number of reasons, one of which I would love to be that he is one of America's finest horseman, if only that was even close to true. But he has many other fine qualities I’m not sure how this happened, but I’m not complaining.
On Tuesday, I saw that I had a phone call coming in from my doctor’s office. I couldn’t figure out why they were calling, other than I had had my annual physical two weeks earlier, and maybe there were some new results coming in. I warily answered the phone. It was the head nurse who asked if I’d had my booster shot yet. I couldn’t quite focus on what she was asking – especially since no booster shots have been officially approved yet by the FDA – and so I assumed she meant my second vaccination, the one that gave me full efficacy. I figured that she wanted to be sure I was fully vaccinated for their records, even though I’d told my doctor that at my physical. So, “Yes,” I answered. It turned out, though, that she wasn’t talking about that at all, but actually did mean the booster. I told her no, not yet. “Would you like the booster?” she asked. Well, sure, I said, but it wasn’t eight months since I got my second shot. That’s okay, she answered, studies have different views, some say six months, others eight. And you’re pretty close to eight months, anyway. Well, that was good, except that the FDA hadn’t approved the shot. It turned out that that wasn’t a problem either. The office had gotten a shipment of vaccines, and it was generally considered perfectly safe to do so by most doctors. “Which vaccine did you get?” she wanted to know? The Moderna, I told her, and figured that that would be another hurdle, at least for the time being. Although Moderna had released its study, and the results were excellent, the only vaccine that had submitted its findings to the FDA so far was Pfizer. “We have that,” she said. “Would you like to get the shot?” Yes!!, I said immediately. “Could you come in tomorrow at 12:20?” Yes!!!, I answered again quickly, before she could change her mind and realize it was all a big mistake. But it wasn’t a mistake, and yesterday I went in and got my booster shot of the Moderna vaccine. I asked her again all my questions, since this was so odd to me. And she repeated all her explanations. Doctors think between six and eight months is fine, and I was close to eight. Doctors have seen the Moderna results and are sure it’s absolutely fine. The office got a shipment of the vaccine, and it’s just sitting there. So, they were calling patients who qualified by the various guidelines being discussed and who they thought might be interested. Honestly, I’m still bewildered. I find it totally odd that this came up. I think it’s weird that I didn’t seem to qualify quite yet for any number of reasons. And I’m perfectly fine trusting my doctor on this since I asked all the questions repeatedly, they answered them all upfront and forthright, and most especially because my doctor is great – even to the point of once basically saving my life. (He once noticed some tests results that were perfectly normal, but he didn’t like them because they were higher than the year before. And he was right, and it got dealt with.) So, I’m now triple-vaxxed. As I said, I’m not sure how this happened, but I’m not complaining. It’ll take the same two weeks for full efficacy. (As the nurse said, that's true for all vaccines.) And so far, the only side effect is the same as before, a slight sore arm. The only thing I regret is not asking the nurse if I could have gotten this third vaccine in a little bottle of salad dressing. I'd read Michael Flynn say that that's the conspiracy liberals were doing (really, honest -- here), and since I like salad and have one every night, I figured that if they had a good low-fat blue cheese, it would have been delicious for dinner that night. But then, they're a really good office, so I'm guessing if they had any, they'd have offered it. My guess is that they were probably out. So, I had it as a shot. So be it. It was fine, and I'm thrilled to have gotten it. That said, I do wish other people would at the very least just get their first vaccination. But if not, that wasn't going to keep me from getting my third. Personal choice, and all, y’know. That and I’m not a total idiot. This is a wonderful video. It’s the first-night performance of the musical Wicked when it returned to Broadway last week, after being closed down for 18 months. The audience is wildly ecstatic, bursting with anticipation, waiting a year-and-a-half not only to see live theater, but -- I'm sure -- their very favorite show. And three moments here stand out. The first is when there’s a surprise pre-curtain speech, and it’s given by one of the actresses from the original production – Kristin Chenoweth. The audience goes crazy. The second is when there’s a downbeat and the overture begins. The audience goes crazy. And the third is the best of all. It comes after the opening song when Glinda the Good Witch makes her entrance. That gets a wild reaction, of course -- after all, this audience of the show's biggest fans have been waiting a year-and-a-half for this -- but it’s not The Great Moment. That’s when she delivers her first line. And as much as it sounds like it’s an ad-lib to the crowd for opening night – and it’s so perfect it's almost impossible to believe it wasn't written for the moment, so much so that I suspect I would have thought that if it wasn’t described on the YouTube page – no, this is actually Glinda’s first line, indeed it's the first spoken line in the show, as written by Winnie Holtzman. Sometimes, the kismet of life is amazing. With music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz. And the audience goes crazy. And it brings down the house and stops the show. As more excerpts get released from the book Peril by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, the venal and sociopathic side of Trump keeps getting laid out more clearly – not that it’s a surprise to many, but as the phrase goes, sunshine is the best disinfectant.
However, to me, the worst revelations are not those of Trump – since, as I said, we know who he is – but rather about all the Republican officials who are so aghast at Trump or who make fun of him…and did nothing about it. Worse, who normalized him, supported him and enabled him. Stories of Paul Ryan so mortified by hearing of chaos in the Trump White House that his response was, “Oh, my God, Jesus.” Mitch McConnell so mortified by Trump that he stopped talking to him. Trump's own CIA Director Gina Haspel so mortified by him that she said “We are on the way to a right-wing coup. The whole thing is insanity. He is acting out like a six-year-old with a tantrum." That at a meeting after the election with VP Mike Pence, Republicans wouldn’t even mention Trump. Republicans in the Congressional cloakroom almost rolling their eyes in disbelief at Trump and joking about Rex Tillerson calling Trump a moron. And on and on and on. All of this in private, behind closed doors. And yet they did nothing. But worse than doing nothing, they gave Trump the support he needed and enabled him. And continue to. It’s certainly good to read had badly so many high-ranking Republicans felt about Trump behind the scenes, that they didn’t take his sociopathic insanity as a good thing. But thinking someone is crazy, out of control and fascist, and yet continuing to support him and enable him while going “tsk-tsk” and “Oh, my God, Jesus” is gut-curdling damning. It’s like showing your humanity by telling others how sickened you are that someone is massacring a crowd of innocents with an AK-47, while handing him more bullets -- because…well, at least he’s on our side. Senators Lindsey Graham and Mike Lee did their own study on whether there was fraudulent voting and determined that there was none, zero -- but did nothing. Instead, they kept it private. And enabled Trump to continue the Big Lie. Because they believed it would help the GOP Brand by undermining trust in Joe Biden's election. Which is one of the tenets of fascism. Republicans knew who Trump was. They knew how sick and awful and dangerous he was. They told each other and rolled their eyes about it in private. They could have stopped it every step of the way. And instead, they supported him and enabled it all. This is not about Trump, we know the pathological fascist he is. The is about the elected members of the Republican Party who enabled him. And became just as fascist. |
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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