A Political Futbol
Sports was supposed to be the one place where people were supposed to be able to get away from political partisanship. But in these troubled times, escape is not possible.
Sports was supposed to be the one place where people were supposed to be able to get away from political partisanship. But in these troubled times, escape is not possible.
The funny papers, as they used to be called, are another. But, thanks to comic strips like Garry Trudeau’s Doonesbury, which pounds Trump so relentlessly, you might think you were watching CNN or MSNBC, and the gringo-hating Lalo Alcarez’s La Cucaracha, which comes across like a badly-drawn version of a La Raza press release, the comics are as politically biased as a Washington Post editorial.
I don’t care about football and it’s difficult for me to even consider soccer a sport, but if I did, I’d be even angrier than I am about what Colin Kaepernick has done to the former and what Megan Rapinoe and her buddies have done to the latter.
The double-standard couldn’t be clearer when it comes to the response these athletes have received. If a conservative athlete had insulted President Obama, do you think Nike or any other company would have given him an multi-million dollar endorsement deal?
If the players on a soccer team representing the United States had announced they wouldn’t show up at the White House because the players hated Obama, do you think they would have received a tickertape parade in New York City? Can you even imagine companies lining up begging to turn them into instant millionaires?
If it hasn’t happened already, you can bet that Megan Rapinoe, who is probably the second most iconic lesbian in America today, second only to Ellen DeGeneres, will soon be popping on boxes of Wheaties.
I wonder and worry how many little girls are already praying to grow up to be just like Megan.
Something I have never understood is why the NRA, in spite of having millions in the bank, always seems satisfied to play defense.
As soon as some liberal proposes legislation to ban certain guns, the NRA springs into action. Otherwise, they’re satisfied to just keep raking in the money.
Yet in every issue of The New American, the editors devote an entire page to accounts of men and women, even teenagers, who have defended themselves and their families against home invaders, robbers and rapists, because they had guns and they knew how to use them.
The NRA should run a series of TV spots letting these people tell their stories. It would be a lot more effective than just delivering dry lectures about the importance of the 2nd Amendment. These are Americans, our friends and neighbors, who were not robbed, raped or murdered, all thanks to their constitutional right to arm themselves.
After I promoted the upcoming screenings of “Angels on Tap,” one of my readers sent me the following email: “Burt, you wanted the commie Ed Asner in your film??”
That second question mark let me know he was really astonished and more than a little miffed. And I can certainly understand why, considering Ed’s political bent. I’ve known Ed for about 45 years. I’ve worked with him in the past when I wrote a couple of episodes of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and a TV movie titled “A Small Killing.”
But I know him a lot better than he knows me. I know he is a Communist; he assumes, because I’m Jewish and have made my living in TV, that I am at least a liberal. I never saw a particularly good reason to set him straight. It’s not as if I could have convinced him that I’m right and that he’s a political nincompoop.
And so my response to the question was “I’m well aware of his politics, but he’s a good actor and I don’t believe in blacklisting, no matter who’s doing it to whom.”
Bob Hunt passed along a warning that any parent would ignore at his own peril: “Children Left Unattended Will Be Given a Drum Kit and a Free Kitten.”
Which reminds me, a friend of mine let me know that he, too, only watches Bret Baier and Tucker Carlson on Fox, and again, like me, hates the folks who replace Baier when he’s on vacation and loves those who fill in for Carlson.
He specifically singled out Tammy Bruce for praise and regretted that “she prefers dames. Isn’t she glorious? Makes me wanna be a woman.”
In response, I pointed out that these days, just wanting to be a woman is all it takes. “Besides, at our advanced age, it’s pretty much all the same. Which reminds me, when I was a very young child, I thought everyone lived to be 100 and at 50, men became women and women became men. I don’t know where I came up with that notion, but I have come to believe that I wasn’t that far off.”
To which he replied: “When I was little, I thought that cats were the women and dogs were the guys.”
To which I concluded: “Amazing that we were both perceptive beyond our tender years.”
After I promoted the upcoming screenings of “Angels on Tap,” a reader asked me if it could still be viewed on Amazon Prime. The truth is I didn’t know since I never watch movies on my computer screen. But I checked and discovered it was still available. What’s more, it had drawn about 15 reviews. Most were favorable, but a few people really hated it. I suspect they were younger people who simply didn’t get the cultural references.
That made me wonder what the rating was on imdb. I was flabbergasted to discover it had a mark of 4.1. For those of you unfamiliar with imdb, it’s a site you can go to find out everything you’d ever want to know about a movie.
I have often paid it a visit if I wanted to know the name of a cast member or the year a movie came out.
In all the years, I’ve looked up movies, I think the lowest number I had ever come across was 5.4. Now, I don’t go looking up really lousy movies, but still…a 4.1?
Why on earth would it score even lower than you’d expect for a cheap slasher flick? It’s only about 75 minutes long, so it doesn’t have epic length working against it.
I found it so mystifying, I went back to Amazon Prime and found that the 15 reviewers had given it an average rating of 4.1. But, whereas imdb scores its movies on a scale of 1 to 10, Amazon Prime scores them 1 to 5, meaning that a miserable 4.1 translates to a superior 8.2.
How odd that imdb doesn’t grasp that simple fact. It makes me suspect the site is run by Democrats.
Bob Hunt, who I’m beginning to think has given up his accounting career in order to send me material, has come through again, providing me with a cache of one-liners.
“I’m great a multi-tasking; I can waste time, be unproductive and procrastinate all at the same time.”
“I hate it when people use big words just to make themselves sound perspicacious.”
“Hospitality is the art of making guests feel like they’re at home when you wish they were.”
“I’ll bet you $4,578 you can’t guess how much I owe my bookie.”
“Behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes.”
“When I married Miss Right, I had no idea her first name was Always.”
“Give me ambiguity or give me something else.”
“Is it wrong that only one company makes the game Monopoly?”
I find it disgusting that Nancy Pelosi, Gavin Newsom and Hillary Clinton, among other top-tier Democrats, are all doing their best to help illegal aliens, including those who have committed felonies in America, escape detection by ICE agents.
Most of us, I dare say, were angry when the jurors at the O.J. trial chose to nullify the law rather than find a black celebrity guilty of a double murder he had obviously committed.
But at least those were just 12 schmucks who, as the saying goes, weren’t smart enough to avoid jury duty.
But this is an entire political party that has decided to nullify federal law, including a slew of pinheads who actually aspire to be the leaders of the free world.
Is it any wonder I have trouble getting to sleep?
