Category Archives: Rant
And whiplash from SMH!
I’m having a tough year; damn near everything pisses me off these days. I’ve never been angrier at the human race than I am lately. My disdain for people is at an all-time high, and that’s a sick way to be. It’s not at all natural for me.
In fact, retirement brought me a long-time-coming epiphany of sorts. I’ve long been known as one of those angry, critical types. A high school friend once named me “the angry young man” (so this has been going on a while). I’ve always accepted it as true. What I finally realized is that it isn’t me…
It’s you.
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11 Comments | tags: Anyone But Trump, democracy, democratic society, Dunning-Kruger effect, face palm, John Cleese, lemon juice, modern life, Operation Breakthrough, shaking my head, social change, social issues, social media, social mores, stupid, stupid people, stupid stupid stupid, stupid TV, stupidity, Trump is a loser, Trump is a monster, whales | posted in Politics, Rant, Society
Now that I’m retired and no longer motoring around the hallowed halls of The Company, it isn’t the annoyance it once was, but this post has been sitting in my Drafts folder for well over three years. As something that annoyed me considerably for 30+ years, it’s worth recording (to me, I mean).
I find that it still does sometimes occur on the highway, and when it does, it reminds me and keeps the rant alive. In any event, I’ve been wanting to use the next line for years! (Just needed the right post.)
You know what bugs me? Well, lots of things, but in this case it’s…
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4 Comments | tags: annoyances, annoying people, car traffic, driving, foot traffic, hallways, human obstacles, obstacles, pedestrian traffic, pet peeves, throughway | posted in Rant
I think I’ve come full circle on Donald Trump. It’s an opposite circle from the one I traveled with William Shatner (and Bill Clinton and Barack Obama). This time I started out appalled, began to rethink my position, but moved back to appalled after all. So while I’m back to liking Shatner, Clinton, and Obama, I’m also back to hating Donald Trump.
His disgraceful apparent behavior, regardless of who he really is behind the circus ringmaster, is enough to disqualify him from politics (let alone from the Presidency of the USA).
His slogan claims he’ll make America great again. The “again” deserves some unpacking, but I got to thinking about the “great” part…
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17 Comments | tags: Anyone But Trump, democracy, democratic society, Donald Trump, election 2016, GOP, politicians, Republican, Republican Party, social change, Trump is a loser, Trump is a monster, US Postal Service, USA, USAnian | posted in Politics, Rant
One thing about an addiction to cable news shows is that the addiction is self-defeating. At least it turns out to be that way for me. After just a few months of paying (way too much) attention to CNN, FNC, and MSNBC, my head has exploded so often that I’m in danger of that not being a metaphor.
What’s so dismaying is the state of “journalism” as reflected by the people running and appearing on these networks. The awful irony is that many of them likely schooled in journalism and revere journalistic heroes such as Edward R. Murrow.
Who is probably spinning in his grave.
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7 Comments | tags: breaking news, cable news, Chuck Todd, CNN, Dana Bash, Edward R. Murrow, FNC, Jon Stewart, journalism, MSNBC, news, Rachel Maddow, Wolf Blitzer | posted in Rant, TV
Watching the antics at the GOP debate this past week, I realized something: the Comment Section has won; it’s taken over public discourse. I wrote recently about how the interweb, especially Twitter, has embedded into modern life. Now I realize just how true that is!
Think about this: Republican candidates for one of the highest and most important public offices in the world — the so-called Leader of the Free World — are exchanging third-grade insults about sweating and pant wetting.
Surely fart jokes are just a drop in the polls away.
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4 Comments | tags: Anyone But Trump, bat-poop bonkers, bat-shit crazy, Bernie Sanders, democracy, Democratic Party, democratic society, dialectic, Donald Trump, election 2016, Facebook, funny, GOP, Hillary Clinton, HRC, humor, Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, politicians, Republican Party, social change, social issues, social media, Ted Cruz, Trump is a loser, Trump is a monster, Twitter, YouTube | posted in Politics, Rant
After watching more cable news than is actually mentally healthy, I’ve come to a number of conclusions, the most important of which is this.
If I ran for president (and why not, everyone else is), I would run on a single platform that ignores all other issues (such as ISIS, economic disparity, failing infrastructure, racial conflict, immigration, global warming, or even Zika).
My platform: No More TV Prescription Drug Ads!
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7 Comments | tags: commercials, funny, humor, prescription drugs, tv commercials | posted in Brain Bubble, Rant, TV
I finally watched The Imitation Game last night. I have a great deal of regard for Alan Turing, and I’ve always enjoyed codes and cryptography (the story of breaking the Enigma machine is especially fascinating), so I was really looking forward to finally seeing it.
And… I didn’t like it. A lot. Turns out it reflects everything I see as wrong with movies — and with society — in these social media-driven, over-amped, uncritical modern era days.
Watching the movie to get away from politics, it dragged me right back for having the same lack of authenticity, made up conflict, and disregard for history.
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23 Comments | tags: Alan Turing, Andrew Hodges, Benedict Cumberbatch, Bletchley Park, Bombe machine, codebreaking, Enigma machine, Joan Clarke, Keira Knightley, Sherlock, The Imitation Game, Turing Test | posted in Movies, Rant
This past weekend, weary of political pundits pondering the pending Primary, I thought I’d submit to the advertising and buzz surrounding the new NBC show, Blindspot. All of the first ten episodes are currently available through OnDemand, and the network has really been pushing the show.
So, on Saturday I sat down, popcorn at the ready, to binge watch those episodes. I’ll give you the punchline now: By the tenth episode I was pretty fed up with it.
It seems to be an inferior take on another NBC show, The Blacklist.
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23 Comments | tags: Blindspot, Castle (TV series), Forever (TV series), Jaimie Alexander, James Spader, NBC, Sullivan Stapleton, The Blacklist, Tom Selleck | posted in Rant, TV, TV Tuesday
There is a bit of delicious schadenfreude with regard to the mainstream (“establishment”) Republican party scrambling to correct for The Donald. The GOP spent years training their electorate to respond to noise and nonsense; now they’re stuck behind an interloper cuckoo bird who’s a master at noise, nonsense, and (worst of all) media.
Between the chirping Donnie Boy and the incoherent lipsticked pit bull, it’s quite an entertaining show. Of course, no one will actually vote for the guy, right? Those big crowds just turn out to see the show, right? They’ll never show up at the actual caucus…
Right? Right??
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22 Comments | tags: Anyone But Trump, Bernie Sanders, cable news, common cuckoo, cuckoo bird, democracy, Democratic Party, democratic society, dialectic, Donald Trump, election 2016, GOP, Hillary Clinton, HRC, illusion, lies, Marco Rubio, Martin O'Malley, Republican Party, rhetoric, social change, social issues, striped cuckoo, Ted Cruz, Trump is a loser, Trump is a monster | posted in Politics, Rant
Washington (D.C.) is the expected epicenter of an approaching patch of extreme weather, an historic storm that is, in large part, due to the damage our modern society has done to the environment. And utterly without irony, there’s going to be a big snowstorm there, too.
The crazy weather does seem suited to the craziness going on in politics. As with climate change due to the increase of CO2, the flow of other pollutants into public discourse has changed the social environment.
The Earth’s weather is getting chaotic, and so is its politics.
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8 Comments | tags: Anyone But Trump, Bernie Sanders, cable news, Democratic Party, democratic society, dialectic, Donald Trump, election 2016, GOP, Hillary Clinton, HRC, illusion, lies, Marco Rubio, Republican Party, rhetoric, snow, snow storm, social issues, Ted Cruz, winter, winter storm | posted in Politics, Rant
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