The Prohibition Against Pork

"I hate it when there's no bad guy."-- Joe Mantegna

In the week before the Tree of Life massacre occurred, there was a significant reaction on Twitter to Farrakhan’s now excoriated verbiage comparing Jews to termites, and I knew nothing about it, and raised my voice to suggest for those of us who wished to remain in ignorance on the matter, the collective scolding gave Farrakhan an undue legitimacy his fading relevance had long bypassed, at least on the merits. I mentioned that he had the same linear minded fixation with Jewish identity as when he appeared on Phil Donahue in our prehistoric analog era prior to the Digital Age, and it was suggested to me not to be too dismissive, especially in light of the fact that Keith Ellison's political aspirations are stained with Farrakhan's sphere of influence-- such influence he still holds with Nation of Islam, and I admit I was stymied by the brief colloquy. Then Bowers had his rampage which mortally wounded us all, collectively, whether Maga or never Trump; indeed, Trump rather capitulated that this casualty list out of Pittsburgh was too much for our collective psyche, and we're gamely flailing ahead, recoiling.

I myself am no longer quite capable to experience such devastation as that which lead my follower JD Landis to ask if Bowers would not have happened if Trump had not won in 2016. By this I do not mean my conscience isn't troubled, only that the quivering dissonance has been muted by my own personal calamity. I did not engage with my occasionally prurient gallows interest in such rhetoric as this, and what The Jerusalem Post offers up as confirmation is the farthest I go in an examination of Farrakhan's nefarious notoriety. I have reasons for this, reasons which, if I am to be sincere with myself, demand that I torture the matter out, follow the curve where it leads me, in between horrid power chair tilt naps and my current domineering submergence to the interpersonal regression to the care giver always at me, like a battering ram. If I am lucky, the grist will turn the mill further later this evening.

Cuba Gooding Jr’s Barrel Run Through a District Thoroughfare

"You took a bullet for the man. No one could ask for more than that."-- James Woods, the initial downgrade phase

All this time, with the disposable underwear chaffing sores on the underside of my thigh, it turns out, recognition clicking like a tumbler, that I would have been able to recognize Amber Tamblyn if I had connected her accusation of James Woods to her starring role in Joan of Arcadia. The show runs at one am on Start TV, unbeknownst to the dowager until recently, this latest syndicate, seemingly distinguishing itself with stock serials less edgy than Shades of Blue, and that series was too edgy for its network audience. But Arcadia is quirky and corny, rounds its characters out with affection, condescending neither to them nor viewers of the show in its playful syncretism. Never one to admire Mary Steenburgen’s range, here she was correctly cast as a homemaker reaching outward. Seems to be what she’s good at. I lost touch with the show after the network brought in Lucifer for poor Joan to counterbalance, and reentered it at the point where Jason Ritter’s Kevin  discovers a conservative bent in his writing skills is a useful outlet for his anger over his paraplegia. The writers, however, rarely, if ever, never allow conservatism its due, and allow Mantegna to dress down his son’s ego for upending a leniency deal for a thief trying to support his child.

Yes, Amber’s down to earth sensibilities made me reconsider her accusation against James Woods. I’ve reflected on what this “pass” which he claims is a lie says about his taste as a sixty year old, and have decided not to side with either actor, simply because asking a minor out on its face isn’t illegal. The imprecation in the contention between them is only the possibility of statutory rape, not its inevitable conclusion, and as I’ve written, none of us can know whether or not he intended to take it that far.

End Game, for a political thriller, was only noteworthy because it appears to be a lethal Clinton era critique, in which Woods’ character, a rather ambient Secret Service Director, sacrifices himself for a first lady more alluring and stylized than Hillary. Perhaps the studio thought not providing Warren Commission answers was the film’s selling point, in its disjointed jump cuts, but it does provide us with the James Woods as we have him today, in his war of wills with a hornless ram like Jack Dorsey.

The Value of Retaining Habits

Undaunted, Richard Lynn has with The Chosen People accomplished a yeoman's task in summing up work done thus far on Jewish intelligence.-- John Glad, undaunted in his own eugenics sphere.

The television network system, in its former monopoly on what viewers were fed, has a somewhat lengthy populism of its own in soft pedaling the Catholic tread on monotheism. The dowager wouldn't be able to remember the content of Sally Field's Flying Nun adventures even with a hypothetical inducement from Peter Thiel being willing to overlook my grimace, offering me a charitable donation to debate him like a fool on why my diffidence against homosexuality matters, but I do remember her self-effacing smile at the conclusion of her playful gymnastics had it about right, in the wholesome humility the public was willing to buy, the abuses pounding the doors of our district attorneys today then still an indulgence of Bad Catholics, according to latter day Commonweal contributors. There may be some hardy souls who point out that my willingness to destroy Presbyterian Homes as a fraternal brickbat stands in direct contradiction against my preference to preserve Roman Catholicism as an institution, but that is a huge thesis I inadvertently rolled into. It is easier this evening to disparage Michael Landon, rumble slightly about Della Reese and angel touches, and point out that Early Edition is beyond superficial, although, in its essential elements, it operates under the same premise as Joan of Arcadia, which respects itself.

However, Shanesia Davis has better facial expressions to pretend blindness than Audrey Hepburn does in Wait Until Dark. The dowager, in her most cursed moment of carelessness thus far, caught only the last 20 minutes of the thriller. Arkin almost looks like another actor. I am not attempting to be hard on the iconic princess. One wouldn't want to be shocked if she had really dug in, but blind people do have facial dysphoria. Here is the evidence of it in the unpleasant leftist Shaf Patel. (I knew it wouldn't work, but swallowed my loathing, followed him back, briefly, still suffering from brotherhood syndrome.) Saramago does imbue a grisly realism to his inexplicable parable of white death, but network never quite knows how to carry disability, pretend or otherwise, for itself. The able majority prefer not to notice, and the deprived, adapt and stiffen. Other than Chandler's sidekick, I am not sure what her role is in the series, other than to cross her fingers that she gets friended a cameo in the ever recurring confirmation bias.