Paul March 2nd, 2010
First, New Orleans. Then Haiti. And now Chile. How much more can a modern-day Job take? How much more can a modern-day Job give? The spirit is willing, but our own economy is weak. It’s hard to turn off the news about disasters abroad, but what about ongoing daily disasters at home, if you’ve still got one? How do you spell Relief? Jobs, Jobs, Jobs.
Paul February 25th, 2010
According to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in a recent interview with Newsmax, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin lacks ”the depth of understanding of the complexity of life that we’re living in today.” He also thinks that she has no political legs in 2012 because “public leaders need to have intellectual curiosity.” I beg to differ with the thoughtful Bush on the latter point. In my opinion, Sarah Palin is herself the biggest curiosity of all, intellectual or otherwise, that we’ve ever encountered in politics in this country. As to whether or not she has legs, not being into dismemberment issues, I must admit I’m stumped.
Paul February 24th, 2010
Not to be outdone by her erstwhile partner in sin, who has now been seen suavely clothed in TV talkshows and hirsutely unclothed in Playgirl magazine, Bristol Palin has agreed to appear as herself on the ABC Family drama series “The Secret Life of the American Teenager.” The 19-year-old daughter of Sarah Palin will be featured in an episode dealing with the consequences of condomless fornication and teen pregnancy. Since Bristol did not get famously pregnant all by her lonesome self, inquiring minds want to know if we’ll get to see her “Makin’ Whoopee” with Levi Johnston. To boost ratings, ABC Family should change the title of the show from “The Secret Life of the American Teenager” to “The Secretions of the American Teenager.” Reality TV doesn’t get better than this. It isn’t porno, it’s Sex Education.
Paul February 11th, 2010
If Sarah Palin wants to enrich herself further after all the lucrative book tours and speaking engagements run out, she can always set up shop as a folksy fortune teller. She doesn’t have to read the palms of her religious Republican followers, because she can just read her own. Her slogan can be, “With Sister Sarah, every day is Palm Sunday.” And for extra donations, she can also read the tea leaves of all the fervent and devout teabaggers. I’m surprised she didn’t do this last week in Nashville, when she was the keynote speaker at the first National Tea Party Convention. By the way, did anyone else but me notice that the convention was held at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel, and that all the TV cameras showed the speakers preaching behind a Gaylord podium? Gay Lord? Really? Why weren’t all the people at the convention on their knees, worshipping their Gay Lord?
Paul January 28th, 2010
“…one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” I’d like to believe that these words are not just empty rhetoric, that they will lead directly to action, and soon. What’s the state of our union when we deliberately exclude, ostracize and discard some members of The American Family?
Paul January 16th, 2010
Having spent nearly forty years of my life teaching in classrooms at the University of Kansas and elsewhere, it puzzles me that, on the one hand, Americans in general seem to believe in the virtues of a good education but, on the other hand, they ultimately also seem to distrust their teachers.
Barack Obama was a professor. He taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. He was depicted by the media as the epitome of “cool” and “hip” on the campaign trail, through the inauguration, and through his first 100 days in the White House. But then, inevitably, the tides turned. Now the same pundits are saying that Obama is much “too cool” and “aloof.” Why does he seize every opportunity to give us “teachable moments” as though we’re still in school? He’s just “too professorial.”
Is there something really intrinsically wrong or untrustworthy about our teachers and professors? If so, let’s stop sending our kids to school, stop taking out student loans to go to college, stop funding universities and all higher institutions of learning. We don’t really need a president who is “too professorial” and makes us feel stupid. What we really want is a folksy leader whom we can chew tobacco and go to church with, hunt abortionists and four-legged animals with, go bowling or balling with, have a beer with.
Now is the time for the Republican Party to inherit the “cool” factor. They should get “with it” and start wooing all the women and other marginalized voters in this country by bringing back George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in drag. If “ignorance is bliss,” then who better to lead us in 2012 than faux females like Sarah Palin and Liz Cheney? Who wouldn’t want to have a drink with these two charming Airheads of State? Well, perhaps not a beer. Maybe an aperitif, or is that too European, too socialist, too liberal, too elitist, too professorial? Well, then, maybe a Screwdriver. At least the orange juice will provide some healthy Vitamin C while we’re getting screwed into alcoholic oblivion.
Paul January 13th, 2010
In her autobiography Thursday’s Child, Eartha Kitt talks about growing up in the cotton plantations of South Carolina in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and how she was ostracized by blacks and whites alike because her lighter skin color made her neither black nor white. So how did she go on to become a great celebrity not just in nightclubs and recording studios, but also in theatre, movies and television? In 1950, Orson Welles called her “the most exciting woman in the world,” and cast her as Helen of Troy in his production of Dr. Faustus.
Given the recent controversy over Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s remark about the game-changing likelihood of white Americans voting for a “light-skinned” African-American in the 2008 presidential election, I’ve compiled a partial list of African-Americans in Hollywood movies. I’m presenting them not chronologically but alphabetically, making it harder perhaps to see if in fact there is any kind of pattern or commonality in the pigmentation of black screen faces through the decades.
Here are the black women whose images flickered in our minds—Angela Bassett, Halle Berry, Diahann Carroll, Dorothy Dandridge, Ruby Dee, Whoopi Goldberg, Pam Grier, Lena Horne, Eartha Kitt, Queen Latifah, Butterfly McQueen, Mo’Nique, Juanita Moore, Beah Richards, Diana Ross, Anna Deavere Smith, Cicely Tyson, Ethel Waters, Vanessa Williams, Oprah Winfrey.
And the black men whose names on the marquee brought us into the movie houses—Harry Belafonte, Bill Cosby, Sammy Davis Jr., Laurence Fishburne, Jamie Foxx, Morgan Freeman, Cuba Gooding Jr., Louis Gossett Jr., Dick Gregory, James Earl Jones, Spike Lee, Eddie Murphy, Sydney Poitier, Chris Rock, Howard Rollins, Will Smith, Denzel Washington, Forest Whitaker, Paul Winfield.
And then, of course, there’s Michael Jackson, in a sad class by himself, someone whose pigmentation changed with his every public appearance.
Leaving Hollywood and the world of make-believe behind, how about the real world? Do we have a different set of criteria for the pigmentation of blacks in sports, in academia, in politics? As the nation gets ready to celebrate Martin Luther King Day next Monday, I find myself wondering—If MLK had been born decades later, with the same darker skin and the same oratorical skills, would we have elected him President of these United States? And would all the “tea-baggers” and right-wing Republicans crucify the “dark-skinned” King even more than the way they’ve been crucifying the ”light-skinned” Obama?
Maybe Harry Reid was wrong. Maybe we aren’t ready. Maybe Hollywood needs to pave the way some more. Maybe Quentin Tarantino needs to remake Gone with the Wind with Kanye West playing Rhett to Mo’Nique’s Scarlett and, maybe this time, quite frankly, my dear, we ought to give a damn.
Paul January 12th, 2010
Today’s headlines reveal that Sarah Palin is joining Fox News as a regular commentator, and that Simon Cowell is leaving ”American Idol” at the end of the season. Now that Ellen Degeneres has replaced Paula Abdul on “Idol,” my guess is that Fox is grooming Moose Palin to join Buckaroo Degeneres on “Idol” after Cobra Cowell’s departure. I’d love to see these two women lick each other in a catfight. Wouldn’t that be a marriage made in heaven…or hell…or maybe California?
And when she quits “Idol” halfway through her contract, Moose Palin will go for Rush Limbaugh’s job and run for President of the United States in 2012. I think that’s what she really meant to tell Katie Couric in that infamous interview, that she can see Rush from her window in Alaska, and maybe her head up on Mount Rushmore as well.
Paul January 6th, 2010
Where TITANIC (1997) showed us the great divide between social classes in allegedly egalitarian societies, with its “message” successfully embedded in a breathless love story between the haves and the have-nots, Canadian film-director James Cameron now picks up where Al Gore left off in AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH (2006). Although Cameron’s AVATAR can be viewed and reviewed as a movie which bashes American-style capitalism and militarism, I personally see it as the first Green Movie for the Masses. It’s too bad that AVATAR was not released last December, when the Copenhagen climate summit was in progress. With Cameron’s permission, President Obama might have distributed DVD copies of the movie to the delegates, and the summit might have produced different results. But, it’s not too late. As is their wont, the Chinese will pirate and distribute illegal DVD copies of this movie to all of Asia, and maybe the yellow masses will be moved to do something about climate change where our world leaders have failed. Although the protagonists in AVATAR look blue, I cannot help but think that if you mix BLUE and YELLOW, you’ll get GREEN. Thanks to THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO AVATAR, we are finally getting a true marriage between ART and PROPAGANDA.
Paul January 4th, 2010
At my age, encounters with frisky strangers occur rather rarely, so my New Year’s resolution is to fly as frequently as I can, in order to enjoy free full-body rubdowns and massages in the expert hands of airport security people.
Here’s some dialogue out of a new Quentin Tarantino remake of an old Russ Meyer movie: ”Lower, please. That’s it. Don’t be shy, now. Harder! Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! Oooops. Sorry about that. You can keep the soiled underwear if you like. Hey, what’s with the handcuffs? I’m not into that kinky stuff! No, please. Not the baseball bat! I’m a tight end, not a wide receiver!”
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