The Weekly Review: September 29 – October 5

 

“I don’t mind paying more taxes … but I’m more interested in how they’re going to spend it. What are they going to do with it?” — Mark Cuban, above, on Fox News

 

Translation: The government wastes too much tax money. We shouldn’t expect the rich to bear this burden, so let’s not raise their taxes until we solve this problem of waste. In the meantime, guess who will continue to get screwed?

Here’s a thought. Let’s tax the rich and let them feel the pain, rather than the Middle Class. Perhaps once they feel the pain, they’ll be motivated to fix all that waste.

 

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Do you want to be on the “wrong side of history”?

Well … why not? I mean, what does the question really mean?

Let’s say you were a cobbler in Nazi Germany, or a British loyalist in 1770 New Hampshire, or a farmer in 1859 Georgia. Maybe you tried to ignore politics … until all hell broke loose.

You are long gone now, of course.

Do we really suppose these bygone souls are floating somewhere in the cosmos, eternally muttering to themselves, “Damn! I really screwed up my time on Earth. Now I’m on the wrong side of history!”?

But what will your great-grandchildren think of you if you are on the “wrong side of history”? I can’t, of course, speak for you, but if I were to learn that my great-grandfather was in fact Jack the Ripper, I might be more fascinated than shamed. I might even write a book about it.

“The wrong side of history,” methinks, might be overrated.

 

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One of the (few) advantages of encroaching old age is that you feel, less and less, a compulsion to finish movies that suck. Life really is too short.

And so I stopped watching In the Tall Grass, the most recent garbage adaptation of a Stephen King story, just 30 minutes into the damn thing.

 

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Sometimes weeks – or even months – will go by when I have absolutely no interest in seeing whatever big-screen products Hollywood is cranking out. But I am intrigued by two new movies: Joker and Knives Out (above).

 

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Depressingly, my Minnesota Twins are on the cusp of losing yet another series to the hated New York Yankees. I have a theory about this year’s nightmare.

Before this ongoing playoff series, the Twins deactivated Willians Astudillo. Willians Astudillo looks like this:

 

 

Willians is the unofficial team clown. His nickname is “La Tortuga” (the turtle). No Twins team ever wins it all without the right ingredients, which include a seasoned veteran (Nelson Cruz), an amazing rookie (Luis Arraez), and a lovable clown (La Tortuga).

In 1991, the last time the Twins won it all, they had the seasoned veteran (Chili Davis), the amazing rookie (Chuck Knoblauch) and the lovable clown (Kirby Puckett).

Big mistake, deactivating Astudillo.

The Yankees, on the other hand, follow a different business model. Their formula for success, as always, is simply: “We spend more money than you do, so we win.”

 

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The Problem with Greg Gutfeld

 

Greg Gutfeld, Fox News’s resident class clown, is an odd duck.

He’s quick without being especially clever, interesting without being especially insightful. Bring up any subject and he’s sure to see it from an angle you hadn’t considered, and that makes him interesting, a respite from the numbing sameness of everyone else on most political panels.

But he’s more strange than funny. He must realize this, because his most annoying habit is relentless laughing at his own jokes. He is so insecure about the actual humor (or lack thereof) of what he’s saying that he must pre-empt a potentially mute reaction with his annoying cackle.

 

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This guy who is constantly on my TV plugging hearing aids (above) — is it ironic that whenever I see him I hit the mute button?

 

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A 78-year-old dude known for being perpetually apoplectic and under the constant stress of a political campaign has a heart attack? Who could possibly foresee that?

 

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