Wax Lion

IIRC when she was last off (two weeks ago?) she said she came back early for breaking news (which I've already forgotten about) so maybe she's taking those remaining vacation days off.

I was lucky as I had several sex ed classes. We covered it in fifth and sixth grade under the idea that if we're talking about it among each other we should know the proper facts. The sixth and seventh grade classes added a focus on understanding puberty, in case we didn't have a parent willing to discuss it. In our junior year we had a more comprehensive sex ed that covered birth control, abortion and how sex worked for opposite sex couples (something I'm guessing isn't covered often based on how little the average straight guy seems to know about female anatomy). Most of us were born in 1974 so discussing abortion was also about how abortion was an option for our parents. Still, there was little discussion of consent (I think there might have been some "No means no" talk but I think we didn't fully understand it. Heck back then Cagney & Lacey took on date rape and he had to go from nice guy to Lifetime movie villain. It always bothered me that pop culture at the time always felt the need to portray as abusers as such unrelenting villains because people have a tendency to cling to the moments when he seems like a nice guy as an excuse. I think that really slowed our ability to understand consent.) I'm especially lucky because I had parents not able to talk about sex, my mom was the kind of person who found it scandalous for CBS to air a documentary about the biology or sexuality at 10PM. Hasn't there been studies showing that comprehensive sex ed is more effective at getting kids to put off sex than abstinence-only? It turns out if you tell kids to think about all the precautions and dangers of sex, they're better armed for their brain to overcome their body's urges.

I actually recorded Rachel twice so that if she added any commentary about the debates I'd catch it. Instead I got Andrea Mitchell glowing about Kasich playing the old "I'd love my child if they were gay but I still wouldn't want their family to have the stability that marital rights provide." It's 2015, it wasn't acceptable to claim you'll "tolerate" gay people while endorsing discrimination. And in their desire to see Kasich as the a moderate, Matthews and Todd were rushing to join the praise. Seriously, I need people who aren't hoping to see the return of the Tip and Ronnie days. They weren't that great and it's not going to happen.

I've got to defend Thomas Roberts. He's more of the old school mold but when he was the only out gay male anchor he was using his position to discuss gay issues, issues Rachel wasn't discussing, at a time when caring too much about gay issues was perceived as "bias" and when the Miss Universe pageant went to Russia, he took the hosting gig and used to do reports on being gay in Russia. He's not snarky and he's not going to introduce a story talking about how Ryan Gosling memes relate to a major issue but he's a rare treat in news. He's got the style and format of a "traditional" anchor but he doesn't follow the beltway rules about caring first and foremost about the majority. It was a fairly last-minute special. My DVR still recorded it as TRMS.

Nah, that's just a sign that they're turning to the hard, serious news that will spike the ratings. "Hard news' and "Serious" as determined by people who think the week isn't complete without an hour of Republican talking about how much they hate Obama.

Try to catch tonight's Rachel Maddow show with had at least two segments about Jon, it was a pretty insightful segment on why he'll be missed. And tomorrow there will be a special in Maddow's time slot, Jon Stewart Has Left the Building. It's not in my cable listings so I"m guessing it was a last-minute addition to the scheduel.

Unfortunately, my local Arby's is a terrible place. I waited a long time for my order and it wasn't good (not Arby's food is bad kind of terrible but like the particular store wasn't making it right). That said, I didn't get sick like Jon promised I would. Maybe I'll just buy a bottle of Arby's sauce. I've been looking at copycat recipes that don't look like they'll come close to tasting right.

That must drive the RNC absolutely nuts. I wonder how similar it is for Dems, though given that the field is so small, there might not be a comparison. There are a bunch of political common wisdom bits that seem to be reversing. It used to be that the Democrats' core voters were frustrated with their candidates trying hard not to be too controversial and pandering to "moderates" who didn't want minorities becoming too equal or for convicts to have a chance to have a non-criminal life once they get out (aka "soft on crime").

Before Fox News there was the Rush Limbaugh show and Limbaugh spent his early days telling listeners not to read or watch the news. It was all the liberal media anyway and he would tell them what to think. His fans used to identify themselves with a "Mega dittos" which basically translates into "I just repeat what you say" and that was how they expressed their fandom. I think Fox has a tendency to freak out about Jon because: 1- A lot of what FN's biggest names do depends on you not following their arguments or checking on the facts but just getting angry about whatever they're directing hate towards 2- Jon is very entertaining in how he challenges their lies. At the peak of FN "Why do you hate the troops?"ism, FN had a benefit of most debunking was boring to most people, so he was a pretty big threat to their power 3- Right wing arguments tend to be huge to grab on something "the other side" does that's slightly similar which justifies their behavior. In this case, Jon is just as big a propagandist as FN is so your Jon Stewart-watching nephew who tells you FN is full of lies is just a big hypocrite who doesn't understand he's listening to propaganda, too... and FN isn't propaganda anyway.

I like Alex Wagner but interviewing disingenuous jerkwads is not her strength. Chris would have gone after that guy. We need a simple solution. (Like Cap & Trade.) We need an ecomomic-based solution. (Like Cap & Trade.) We need a solution that encourages entrepreneurs to invest in clean energy. (Like Cap & Trade.) It's Obamacare all over again. A Democrat picks up the Republican proposal and then Republicans suddenly hate their own idea for jiggery pokery reasons.

I'm glad to see John has taken up the task of reminding us that Elanor Holmes-Norton is awesome, since Stephen hasn't been able to take up the task for the past several months.

I liked Now with Alex Wagner much more when it was a morning show where she'd talk with a panel of guests every day. It varied based on the panel but she's really great with moderating a panel. When it moved to afternoons it didn't work so much for me. It felt like they were trying to fit some MSNBC mold.

One thing I'm curious about after watching that episode is if milk "use by" dates are standard. I use them when I buy milk presuming that the latest "use by" date is the freshest carton, but if the wording is inconsistent I wonder if I can rely on the date for freshness or if those dates are inconsistent, too. Once that date has passed, I keep using the milk until it smells sour. My husband is lactose intolerant and those products don't come in packages small enough for finish before they reach the "use by" date. They're also expensive so I don't throw it out until I'm sure it's gone bad. Honestly, I don't feel bad about wasting produce because that goes in the compost pile or worm bin which feeds my plants (and, even though they say not to put dairy in compost, I'll throw sour milk on it since I've been told the main reason for not composting dairy is the chance of the fat attracting rats, I figure that's not as big a risk with lowfat milk which probably adds nitrogen). I'll bury an old piece of meat, too if it smells bad and hasn't been salted and have been lucky with those. It's the packaged ingredients that I end up wasting. For example, when I buy tahnini to make hummus, I only need a few tablespoons and it usually goes moldy before I can use it all, a few tablespoons at a time.

Wasn't that Schumer joke in one of her specials, before she got her show? She's another comedian I've followed since her Last Comic Standing days and her specials had jokes that I found racist among some good stuff. I've long wished she'd learn to avoid that kind of joke and they haven't been a part of Inside Amy Schumer. She's tackled race since then but the sketches I recall were funny (even if The Guardian misinterpreted them). I just don't think that joke works as part of a "slutty boozy persona" because it's not structured in a way that the joke is how ignorant she is. It's something an ignorant person would say but it's a joke where we'd laugh at her ignorance but in shock that she'd say that.

While I like the sentiment of Larry's "non-consensual sex has never been a widely accepted practice" joke, it's entirely not true. Happily our trend has long been to learn more about the definition of consent. Cosby's defense is correct when he says back then that kind of shit was considered okay. It was accepted enough that Cosby could make jokes about it and have a reputation of being a "clean" comedian. Oh, goody, Larry starts a discussion of Cosby's rape allegations by letting Colin Quinn go off on how political correctness is destroying comedy. That's the Nightly Show I used to hate watch. This is a great way to return to that territory. I get the feeling that Larry empathizes more with Quinn than anyone who objects to Amy Schumer's joke about Hispanic men being rapists. (I'll add that it sounds like Schumer listened to critics and learned those jokes aren't really funny.) Good to see Gina Yashere on US TV again. I loved her on Last Comic Standing several seasons ago, I think her name was pronounced differently there. Good too see Sally Kohn here, too. She's great. Too bad about Quinn. He made that segment feel like ti ran for a half-hour by itself.

Actually, I was surprised they didn't make it like one of those Viagra ads (which for some reason, I always see when I watch Bravo -- shouldn't those shows get a Viagra ad featuring a silver fox?) featuring a ridiculously hot female spokesperson talking like she's a typical AM user just waiting for a guy to sign up so she can hook up with him. I vaguely remember hearing an NPR piece a few years ago saying that a lot of these cases were people who hit the technical (strained) definitions of these crimes but were left with huge sentences because they weren't really involved and couldn't bargain their sentence away with information. The part I remember was a woman who was technically guilty of trafficking because she took a phone message for her drug dealing boyfriend but since she wasn't otherwise involved in her boyfriend's crimes she ended up going to jail for a much longer sentence than her boyfriend. I'm surprised John didn't mention things like that... and I wish I remembered to look up that story online after I heard it.

I'll repost this link to a Gawker article calling out that particular Daily Beast reporter for having a double standard in ignoring how much Morning Joe's ratings have slipped. And it gave me a good chuckle when he called Chuck Todd a "non-ideological reporter" which says plenty about how the Beltway media defines "non-ideological." ETA: One thing I find interesting is that there's no talk about demo ratings. MSNBC used to be tops with African-American viewers and that would have buoyed Al Sharpton's show in the past. I don't know if these reporters don't know/don't care about that but I'd think that's an important part of the picture -- if that's the same that adds perspective on the decisions and if it has dropped that's a pretty damning fact to add, wouldn't you think? Especially with recent events.

I figure it's worth bringing up this Gawker post noting the double standard in the media-on-the-media, cheering for All In to be cancelled while overlooking Morning Joe's collapsing ratings. (And the same reporter wrote the most recent Daily Beast report on MSNBC also wrote the one Gawker calls out.)

Funny, I was thinking the opposite for San Francisco, that cubicle themed restaurant would be giving diners way too much table space! (I remember once on a date we were seated at a table that was two small tables put together. To our surprise, some time after we ordered the server pulled the other table away three inches and sat another couple.

I loved watching Rachel debunk the Perot myth. I didn't realize Perot took voters from both Clinton and Bush, myself. I just remember Rush Limbaugh whining about how Clinton wasn't really elected by the people and running graphics on his TV show counting the days the country was being held hostage.

Mark De Mayo was a classic problem of The Nightly Show, when Kristina Greer was making an interesting point he was interrupting her to crack jokes... and when Jordan makes a similar point De Mayo let him finish, even though Jordan's point wasn't as strong. This was a great week for TNS.

I think Rachel Maddow has interviewed him twice about the deal but she definitely comes out of the movement that Jon started. Yeah but think about it from the Republicans' perspective. They regularly put off funding measures until there's a countdown clock on CNN because they hate government. If they're in power, they'll put re-negotiating until too late because refusing to deal with other countries is strenght. If they're not in power they'll undermine the President until it's too late just so they can us it as a campaign issue. At least, I figure that's probably how the current batch of rRepubicans see it. I had a teacher who used left handedness as a simple way of explaining privilege. If you're left handed a lot of things aren't designed to work comfortably for you. She used ladles as an example, pointing out that left handed kids at a party are more likely to end up spilling punch on themselves... but everyone doesn't realize its because they're left-handed but, thinking it's because they're clumsy and don't know how to do something that easy and simple as pouring punch. And I'm a bit odd in my left -handedness. I don't write with a hook and I learned to use a lot of things from a right-handed perspective before I was given left-handed versions so things like scissors feel uncomfortable to me no matter which hand I use.

Along those lines, I hate it when a nagging spouse (usually a wife) who complains about the lead character going off to do their world-saving job. It's annoying to watch but it's more annoying as a trope, it's just lazy writing to tell the audience how heroic the protagonist is and how awful his marriage is.

I've long wanted to watch Witchblade. I avoided it because of the comic being such a joke but then a friend told me the first season was full of radical feminist concepts turned into scifi. Unfortunately it seems to be hard to find since it didn't end in a satisfying way.

While TNS has been less of a hatewatch lately it still drives me crazy. However, I think last night was the first time I really enjoyed it since the premiere... or maybe the first Cosby episode. I hope it's because they're getting a handle on the tone instead of just that Cosby is the topic they handle best. Holly Walker's rap was amazing and it was pretty great to see Cosby's old rapey jokes covered. Honestly, I haven't paid that much attention to the Cosby story because it's so sad but have those jokes been highlighted elsewhere or did Larry find them?