HBO has changed its policy of releasing the Main Story video from Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on Mondays, the day after the broadcast. Now, they are releasing it on the Thursdays following. So, if you didn't see the show this past Sunday, here 'tis. The Main Story was on Internet scams, specifically a scam that goes by the notable name of "Pig Butchering." (No, this has nothing to do with animals, but the victims of the scam.) The story is extremely interesting, and often very funny. (And Oliver is more self-effacing in his ridicule of himself than usual.) But it does take a darker turn when diving deeper into the scam.
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One of the most hilarious, if insane issues that is maniacally triggering the extreme right – both the base and GOP officials – is Taylor Swift going to Kansas City Chiefs football games and cheering for her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, who is a tight end on the team. This has ratcheted up even more now that the Chiefs will be playing in the Super Bowl. This is all leading somewhere, so bear with me, even if you think you’ve heard it all. Something new just cropped up, and it’s pretty lunatic. Not that everything so far isn’t hugely lunatic already. Starting with getting so deeply upset over a young woman cheering for her boyfriend at a football game. Actually, you would think that a white, blonde woman cheering for her sports hero boyfriend would be something at the heart of today’s Republican Party. But not with Taylor Swift. And Travis Kelce. Travis Kelce is trigger enough for Republicans, since he’s done ads about getting COVID booster shots, which only to today’s GOP is considered something worth outrage. But Taylor Swift? She’s making their heads explode. That’s because she endorsed Joe Biden in 2020, has endorsed Democrats and – and troubling of all for Republicans – is registering voters at her concerts and online. Just one Instagram post with link last October got 35,000 new registrants that day. But that’s nothing compared to 2018 when her Instagram post then got 102,000 new voters to register within two days. By the way, her posts don’t say who to vote for or even party to register with, just to register. In fairness, she did once say about Trump, “We will vote you out,” and her followers do tend to be younger and more liberal. But still – it’s just been a request to register. Nothing more. What’s been so hilarious (and truly crazy) is the level of conspiracy and outrage she has evoked among the extreme right. One tweet that transcended "deranged" explained in detail how it was a plot with agents of with Satan who were working to get President Biden re-elected. (Apparently, this person believes that Taylor Swift is more powerful than God.) There was a conspiracy-laced comment from Jesse Watters of Fox who referred to Taylor Swift as a 'psyops." (Conspiracies about Taylor Swift became a really big deal on the extreme-right when she was named Time Magazine's Person of the Year.) Several tweets from people now explain that this is all a conspiracy with the NFL to get the Kansas City Chiefs to win the Super Bowl. Indeed, one of those came from outer space, suggesting Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are nothing more than an artificially-created couple designed solely to announce their endorsement of President Biden right before the election. Oh, I should note that that crazy one came from Vivek Ramaswamy! Really. Honest. Of course, nothing cries "artificially culturally propped-up" like the woefully unqualified Vivek Ramaswamy's "presidential campaign." But then, pretty much all his pronouncements have been "wild speculation," so why should we expect him to stop now? Though it’s nice that he considers a Taylor Swift endorsement "major." And the least-kept secret of the presential campaign. (Just to be clear, as the cookies say, this is from 2020.) But my favorite reaction has been from a fellow named Nick Adams, who says that he wrote a book which was endorsed by Trump, and who goes by the handle “Alpha Male.” He wrote – “By being on the team that won the AFC Championship, Travis Kelce will received [sic] a bonus check of around $70,000. “For those wondering why Taylor Swift is dating Travis Kelce: are things beginning to make sense now?” It’s hard to describe how much that theory transcends hilarity. Taylor Swift's Eras Tour is the first concert tour ever (man or woman) to gross over a billion dollars. Further, the concert movie of the tour recently became the highest-grossing concert film of all-time, making an additional $261 million. But...but…but a "bonus check" of -- $70,000! That her man will get. A check which doesn’t even go to her, and which when they started dating she could only hope he might win two playoff games to receive (games for which the team was the underdog in both) – that’s why Taylor Swift started dating Travis Kelce. “Alpha Male,” indeed. (Fun fact: Taylor Swift gave $100,000 bonuses each to 50 truck drivers on her tour. And also gave bonuses to dancers, musicians, technicians, caterers and other crew members on the tour. But Travis Kelce got a $70,000 bonus and might pay for dinner or buy her a nice pendant!!) And none of delusion yet is the point here. I’ll get to it in a quick moment. It’s all really quite nuts. On several levels. One is that, while, yes, she's supports Democrats and is registering voters -- though of any party -- all she is doing right now that is driving them crazy is...cheering for her boyfriend at a football game. And if she's on camera cheering, that's the network's doing. Just like they periodically put the camera on San Francisco quarterback Brock Purdy's parents throughout the game yesterday. And it's all the more bizarrely deranged when you realize that these attempts to counteract Taylor Swift (for cheering for her boyfriend) are so doomed to failure that the phrase “doomed to failure” doesn’t even come close to explaining how doomed to failure they are. Consider -- Taylor Swift has 272 million followers on Instagram! Not all in the U.S., of course, but – well, that’s a lot. And she has 95 million followers on Elon Musk’s TwiXter. All of them people who really, really, really love Taylor Swift. A whole lot. Which brings us to the point here. And the point isn’t Taylor Swift, that was important background. The point is Elon Musk. The Elon Musk who cries out that at the core of his being is Free Speech. For all…except that journalists who criticize him, they get their accounts blocked. And except for people in his company who do things he doesn’t like, they get sued. That Elon Musk. The guy who told all users of Twitter (before weirdly changing the name to “X”) to vote for all Republican candidates. And followed the request of the Turkey dictatorship to block information before the country had an election. And has backed requests of other despots. And retweeted and called “true” a deeply virulent and profoundly untrue anti-Semitic tweet. And has made number deeply anti-Semitic comments, like saying that Jewish financier and Democratic donor George Soros “hates humanity.” And the Elon Musk who told all advertisers that if they didn’t like him, after posting a particularly anti-Semitic comment, they could “Go f*ck yourselves.” That Elon Musk. Mr. Free Speech. It turns out that many people on TwiXter found that Taylor Swift had been blocked from the accounts. But even more than that, it turns out that everyone on TwiXter has been blocked from just searching for Taylor Swift! I found this hard to believe. But it was easy to check out. So, I did a search for Taylor Swift. And this is the result that I got -- What I especially love is that it not only says, "Something went wrong" with zero results, but that it adds, “Don’t fret -- it’s not your fault.”
I had to laugh at that. Because -- oh, believe me, I know it was not my fault. In fact, I have a good idea whose fault it is. It certainly could have been a temporary, totally innocent accident. But I checked six hours later, and it turns out there was nothing temporary yet about it. The issue was still there. Nor, given Musk's endorsement of all Republicans and support of despots and dripping arrogance that he can do anything and if you don't like it, you can to f*ck yourself, was there any reason to believe it was an accident or innocent, even if it was. Because in the end, that it took as long as it did, amid all the blistering attention on the problem, whatever its cause, innocent or otherwise, to finally "fix" what was most surely a simple, quick fix is the most glaring Musk-related indictment of all -- not just of who he is, but how he's gutted his tech department. The thing is, of course, with 95 million followers on TwiXter, I think there's a really good chance that her fans would be able to find Taylor Swift. No matter how much Mr. Free Speech wants to tell you to go f*ck yourself. Last week, I posted an article here about a piece in the Los Angeles Times by their TV critic Robert Lloyd. He had written an article on 30 wonderful international streaming series, most of which sounded great, and I linked to it. Unfortunately, it turned out that Lloyd’s article was for a special section in the paper, and as a result it was behind a paywall, and so no one could access it without being a subscriber. I didn’t want to cut-and-paste the entire article here, since I didn’t think that was proper for the paper. However, I did what I hope is a reasonable compromise. I culled out 19 of the series I found most interesting – and which were on the most-accessible streaming platforms – and significantly trimmed down the detailed paragraphs of each that Robert Lloyd wrote. Instead, I added just simple capsule descriptions, most only one sentence, to identify what each series is about. And then finally, while the Times article listed all the shows by the country that made them, I rearranged them by the streaming service they’re on – and noted their country parenthetically. I’ve seen two of the series mentioned here. The entire series of the tremendous Extraordinary Attorney Woo, and the first season so far of Call My Agent (which has been adapted by British TV.) HULU El Encargado (Argentina). A dark comedy of social and economic class about the manager of a luxury condominium in Buenos Aires, who has come to identify the building as his own. The Office (India). An Indian adaptation of the series. Boris (Italy). The fourth season of a series revived after 11 years. A hectic backstage comedy about making an Italian TV series on the life of Jesus, fictionally funded by a Netflix-like American company. One Dollar Lawyer” (South Korea) is about an attorney who only accepts $1 from needy clients; he’s cool, colorful, eccentric and behind on the rent. NETFLIX Rough Diamonds (Belgium). Set in Antwerp among Orthodox Jewish diamond merchants, a suicide brings family members back together, Albanian mobsters and an interested prosecutor. Call My Agent (France) about a talent agency, mixed with real actors spoofing themselves. Standing Up (France) a terrifically sweet series set in the comedy clubs of the city’s less chic quarters, its characters struggling to make a name for themselves. From the same creator as Call My Agent, also with real French comics playing themselves mixed in. Dark (Germany). There’s a wormhole in the caves below a nuclear plant. A time- traveling multifamily drama, with moody, mysterious sorrow and shades of gray. The Law According to Lidia Poët (Italty). A mystery set in 1880s Turin, based on Italy’s first female lawyer who was kicked out of the bar and became a detective, assisting her lawyer brother. Smart, exciting and a bit naughty, it moves through social strata and historical moments. Midnight Diner (Japan). An anthology series set around a backstreet Tokyo eatery, that opens at midnight, where night owls offer short stories that tend to the bittersweet, but mostly sweet. Food plays an integral role; some episodes even end with a demonstration of the episode’s main dish. Tiger and Dragon (Japan). A deceptively complex comedy about storytelling. A young yakuza is frustrated because he can’t tell a joke, comes to collect a debt from a master of rakugo, which is a classical form of comic performance, and becomes his apprentice. Characters enact the tales they tell from stage. Extraordinary Attorney Woo (South Korea) is a sweet, oddball legal series about a lawyer with autism spectrum disorder. The tone is largely whimsical, often comic, but never mocking. AMAZON PRIME VIDEO Guilty Minds (India). Character-rich, lively legal drama, in Hindi and English about old friends on opposite sides handling big issues. A Private Affair (Spain). Set in 1960s, the rich sister of the new police commissioner faces prejudice after seeing a woman murdered, and turns investigator with intelligence, beauty, bravery, madcap adventure and romance. High production values and very cinematic give eight episodes an epic feel. With Jean Reno as Hector, her butler and reluctant Watson. AMAZON PRIME FREEVEE The Three Musketeers (South Korea ) translated to 17th century South Korea, some new narrative twists, romance, comedy, intrigue, fascinating period work and swordplay. APPLE TV+ Pachinko (South Korea). American-made trilingual epic melodrama tells of four generations of a Korean family, beginning with Korea under Japanese colonial rule to modern day. MAX Garcia! (Spain). A super-spy is put into suspended animation in 1961 and awakens in the present day. He’s adopted by a talkative aspiring journalist and must adjust from having lived in a dictatorship to now in a democratic nation with political skullduggery trying to bring him down. Mainly a comedy with some Spanish tragedy, romance and action, on the need to change. I Don’t Like Driving (Spain). TV critic Lloyd says this might be his favorite. A beautifully shaped, novelistic single-season comedy about a middle-aged, misanthropic literature professor who decides to finally learn to drive. He’s been stuck emotionally and literally. relying on others, and then some new people come into his life. HBO My Brilliant Friend (Italy). Adapting three of Elena Ferrante’s “Neapolitan” novels, an intimate epic that follows its two life-long friends from 6 to 66, women in a world ruled by childish men. And as I posted at the end of my previous article, just for the heck of it again, this is the trailer for Extraordinary Attorney Woo. The trailer is enjoyable and shows the series' charm, though perhaps over-emphasizes the whimsy a bit and doesn't even begin to come close to doing the program justice -- not touching on some of the fascinating law cases, its serious conflicts, or any of the show's twists. But it gives a somewhat reasonable sense of things and you do get to see the tremendous lead actress, Park Eun Bin. (She originally passed, not sure if she could do the character justice and be respectful, so she went off and did another series. But the producers waited for her. She reconsidered and signed on. They were wise to wait.) I love the series, which has become a huge international hit, but you should know it might take 2-3 episodes for it to fully kick in. That’s what happened with me, after having it recommended by a friend. And I in turn recommended the series to a friend -- who stopped after one episode. Three months later, he told me he'd given it another try. And became so overwhelmingly hooked that he binged the entire 16-episode season in a few days. Sorry, some of you might hate me for this. But you’ll hate me more if I didn’t pass this along. L.A. Times TV critic Robert Lloyd wrote an article on 30 international streaming series – and unfortunately, about 80% of them sound great. (Being flexible, maybe closer to 100% -- really.) And at least worth checking it. The only reason I might be off the hook with you is that it’s almost Summer, school’s out, and you’ll have more time to binge. But you still might disappear from society, and go into Ultimate Binge Mode on overload He notes that the series he includes "offer an inside, not a tourist, view, and so take you places tourists don’t go. This isn’t a 'best' list — Borgen is not on it — just a collection of things I like, shows I found fun, funny, surprising, enlightening, exciting or beautiful, or that opened a window onto a new world." I won’t list ones that sound most interesting, but a few are noteworthy. There’s one from Spain on Amazon Prime, A Private Affair that’s a fun-sounding mystery about the sister of the police commissioner that actually has the great Jean Reno in a supporting role as a sort of "reluctant Watson". And another from Spain, I Don’t Like to Drive, on Max that he says might be his favorite. And as for favorites, he includes one of my own absolutely-favorite series, Extraordinary Attorney Woo from South Korea (which if you haven't seen it is a total, charming joy, a big hit on Netflix, though for some it might take two or three episodes to get sucked in. It's about a young woman on the functioning autism spectrum who is hired at a high-end law firm, and the stories eventually go in several unexpected directions) -- and another good-sounding legal one also from South Korea, One Dollar Lawyer on Hulu. And there are 26 more series on the list… Sorry. I'm not a binger, so this list scares me it's so good. It might get even me to start at least mini-bingeing, because otherwise I’ll never get through a third of this plus all the other series and movies already on my list. You can find the article here. [UPDATE: I've been told that the article is behind a pay wall. Sorry about that. I don't want to copy/paste the whole article here, but I'll try to post some of the most intriguing titles Ack, Sorry about that. I don't want to copy/paste the whole article here, but I'll try to post some of the most intriguing titles and what streaming services have them in an upcoming piece. But -- I believe you can get five free articles a month if you download the free Los Angeles Times mobile app. So, if you want to read the full article, and don't have the app, just download it for your mobile phone and perhaps you can browse to the article that way. Though this article was for a special section and might not be available without a subscription.] And just for the heck of it, this is the trailer for Extraordinary Attorney Woo. It's enjoyable and shows the series' charm, though perhaps over-emphasizes the whimsy a bit and doesn't even begin to come close to doing the program justice -- not touching on some of the fascinating law cases, its serious conflicts, or any of the show's twists. But it gives a somewhat reasonable sense of things and you do get to see the tremendous lead actress, Park Eun Bin. Earlier in the year, I recommended the series to a friend I was sure would love it. He watched the first episode, but said it wasn't for him and stopped. I tried to explain that, much as I liked it from the start, I didn't love it at first either, but kept watching, and I was sure he would be bowled over, as well. But no, he'd seen enough. I decided not to push, even though I knew he'd love it. So be it, that's life. Three months passed. Last week, I got an email from him. For some reason, he thought he'd give it another try. And became hooked. He said he adored it, couldn't imagine why he'd stopped, and was bingeing and already up to episode five. And then two days later, he wrote back to say he was up to #10. He was going to hold off, though, because he loved it so much he wanted to have more to look forward to later. On May 12, Elon Musk said that Linda Yaccarino would take his place as CEO of Twitter. From her background, it didn’t seem to many that this change would be all that substantial, to which the reality remained that Musk still owned the company and would remain chief technology officer. It turned out that only a few hours after making that announcement – and in fairness, he was likely still the CEO – Twitter announced that it is “taken action to restrict access to some content in Turkey,” though the blocked content would still be available in the rest of the world. It’s worth noting that this announcement came in the midst of a very tight election in Turkey that required a run-off only two weeks later on May 28 between the country’s fascist dictator Recep Tyyip Erdogan and opposition leader Kemal Killicdaroglu. Given that the Turkish government controls much of the country’s media, it seems likely that Turkey made this request, most likely in the form of a threat. And it seems probable that they did this, not only because Erdogan is a fascist dictator, but because Turkey saw that India had made a similar threat to Twitter before its election, and Twitter gave in to them. This stands out all the more since Musk is such a supposed vocal “free speech” advocate on all things, including allowing misinformation about COVID and letting hate speech proliferate on the social media platform. Although he did suspend an individual who posted public information about the location of Musk’s private jet, and suspended several journalists who merely wrote stories about it. And he’s fired Tesla employees for posting negative material Tesla that Musk didn’t like. So, his track record on “free speech” all the time seems a bit sketchy at best. When the story about blocking tweets in Turkey broke, liberal journalist Matt Yglesias the next day “the Turkish government asked Twitter to censor its opponents right before an election and @elonmusk complied.” Musk tweeted a reply: “Did your brain fall out of your head, Yglesias? The choice is have Twitter throttled in its entirety or limit access to some tweets. Which one do you want?” Yes, that was the choice. And Musk chose to enable a fascist dictator so he could silence his opposition and help him retain power. As opposed to choosing free speech. Which Musk proclaim to supposedly support in absolute. It was his choice. And he chose fascism. So be it – but he should no longer pretend to support free speech in absolute. The additional problem is that when you cave to a fascist dictator, then other such authoritarians see that they can’t make the same demands and help themselves hold onto power. And if you refuse the threat, the dictator has to make the decision whether to follow through and risk the outrage in his country at losing access to the world’s most popular social media platform and possible uprising against his power – or decide to back down. None of this really comes as a huge shock if one pays even the slightest attention to Musk’s action, including him recommending that everyone vote a straight Republican ticket in the Mid-terms -- a perfectly acceptable personal opinion, though a deeply weird and troubling one for the owner of a social media platform who had been attacking the company before he bought it for what he claimed were its political biases – in that case, supposedly for liberals. Coming on the heels of Musk’s anti-Semitic comments about George Soros wanting to “erode the very fabric of civilization. Soros hates humanity” it’s been a horrible few weeks for Elon Musk. But then, in fairness, it’s been a horrible year for Musk. Though in fairness, he’s brought it all on himself. Ever since Musk bought Twitter, users have left the platform in droves -- and worse, so have advertisers. At the moment, there is value in me staying there, to promote this site. And also to respond to far-right misinformation, especially in an election year coming up. (Besides which, while I know there are advertisers, I've never seen a paid corporate ad on Twitter the way I use it. So, they're not getting a bang from their buck from me...) But I'm nearing to the point where the line is crossed. It's worth my time, but I'm giving less of it. Ignoring as much of the increase in smarminess and hate as I can, and being far-quicker to block it. Of course Elon Musk doesn't care. He said as much just the other day, not caring what other people think about what he says and does. Which when you come down to it seems an incredibly poor way for the owner of a social media platform to operate. And which might explain why people and advertisers have left it in droves. And does explain why he's brought this on himself. Yesterday was one of those Twitter Days. I criticized someone on the platform who had left an empty extreme-right tweet and, of course, got bombarded by scathing, venomous replies. And by "bombarded" I mean that for the next several hours there were probably a few hundred, along with many hundreds more retweets of the slams.
I didn't read most of them, of course, nor did I reply to many. However, I did see a whole lot, and responded to, if not "many," then too many -- after which I'd say a polite "Goodbye" and muted them (so they'd see what I wrote) to be later blocked. I noticed a few things about the replies as a general rule -- 1) They like calling you funny names because apparently "Rupert" or "Roger" or "Rodent" or "Relishberg" is considered damning in their world, 2) they like sending graphics instead of actually thinking of something to say, and 3) they really like making smarmy replies that don't address any specifics of the actual criticism. (Occasionally I'd reply to a tweet and say that my name wasn't "Rupert," but actually was Brandon.) One person linked to the WGA and said that one of their most prominent members was a total idiot who didn't understand anything. I wrote back and thanked the person for calling me a "prominent member" of the Writers Guild. Personal attacks about being bald were also big, though that's par for the course. I've long had a couple of standard responses, and if there's room, often use them together. I generally tell people that each of us are given only so many genes, and if you want to use yours for growing hair, that's your choice. Also, Shakespeare, Churchill and Gandhi were bald. Hitler had hair. A particular odd, repeated "attack" (and putting that in quotes in the only way I can do it justice) was all the people slamming me for apparently having a waterbed. Not only that, but for buying it on a credit card at an incredibly high APR. I don't know, don't ask, apparently this is an extreme right "thing." The only thing I can say is that it was not as damning as they thought it was. Although they all seemed to get a lot of enjoyment out of it. What also stood out is that a great many people told me off because they said the guy leaving the original tweet had a satire account -- while as many people told me off because I dared criticize something they took very seriously. (Side note: someone wrote to tell me that they'd criticized something from this account, and they'd been immediately swarmed on with vicious, crude attacks. He then added -- "These are not nice people." I replied: "It has come to my attention." I should note that I checked the account, and there was very little "satire" on it. I write satire and parody professionally, and have a respectable eye for such things, and man, the cupboard there was bare. If that was what some considered "satire," they've set their bar very low. The most "satire" I could find with a microscope was in the guy's bio, where he called himself a "living legend youth football coach" in Georgia. I got the joke. It was hard to miss, because it stood alone in a satire desert. But as I explained in several of my replies to those who chided me ("Chided me" is the polite term, since it was more like calling me a stupid, incompetent, ignorant idiot) for apparently missing the "satire," there was a huge flaw in their chastising me. I said that for the sake of argument let's accept for the moment that it was indeed a satire account. That means if someone believes the original tweet in question was satire, one of two things had to be true -- 1. That you don't think he actually meant what he wrote at all, but the opposite, which means you agree with my criticism of it, and so the only thing that I was foolish about was, not my criticism, but for not getting the satire. Fair enough, that's then what you'd say -- rather than also slam me for being wrong. Or if not that, then -- 2. You think the point the original writer was absolutely, spot-on correct, and the "satire" was only that he exaggerated -- which means my criticism holds. But of course, that brings us to the "I was just joking" gambit. This has become the Republican defense of choice since Trump. Say something horrible, thoughtless and cruel - and then when criticized, run away and hide after insisting "I was just joking." And try to make the other person at fault for not getting what wasn't a joke in the first place. (By the way, jokes can be horrible, thoughtless and cruel. There are bad jokes.) I never mind being disagreed with. Further, when I'm wrong I like to be corrected. In fact, later in the day I received a tweet on a totally different subject that explained I'd replied to a note that had some incorrect information about a battery plant to be built in Georgia. I deleted my reply and wrote a new one. But -- when whoever disagrees with me (or with anyone) doesn't say what was "wrong," it means they have nothing. They just don't like that you criticized something they want to believe is true, but have no argument to correct you. And further, having no argument, the person is left with making ad hominem attacks, trying to think of a slam that, because of their own insecurities, they believe will be seen as mean. Ah, well, that's life on Twitter these days. To be fair, I had similar exchanges pre-Musk. Though today's outburst was more pronounced. The barrage continued throughout the day, but slowed later in the day. It's just an occasional drip at this point. But I'm sure replies will pop up from time to time. Or to put it in the words a Fox "News" viewer might grasp - We report, you deride. |
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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