Israel, Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, Africa … too much bad crap going on in the world. I’d prefer not to think about it and instead watch a man flick his Bic:
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I’m picturing a group of bureaucrats at the CDC, sitting around and twiddling their thumbs when someone suggests: “You know, we don’t have enough problems in this country. What say we import Ebola?”
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Apparently, this woman made the grave mistake of admitting that she loves her husband more than she loves her children.
I think the woman has a good argument. Presumably, her husband had to actually do something to woo and win her. Her kids, on the other hand, popped out of her birth canal and immediately enslaved her.
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Some doctor was on CNN attempting to assure us that the U.S. medical system can handle Ebola, should that deadly disease rear its ugly head here.
Didn’t this dunderhead, Dr. Anthony Fauci, read The Hot Zone? What if someone with Ebola comes here and does not enter the medical system? When some people think they have the flu, they don’t rush into the U.S. medical system; they turn on the TV and share pizza with neighbors.
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Comedian Marc Maron “favorited” one of my Tweets. Now I suppose I’m obligated to watch his show. Just kidding; I already watch it, cuz it’s pretty good.
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Evidently, some weird fluke of timing has prevented SundanceTV’s Rectify from being nominated for an Emmy. This is a crime, because Rectify might be the best show on TV.
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Fox News numbskull Anna Kooiman interviewed Tana Baumler, a brain-damaged woman who got caught speeding with her two young grandchildren in the car. Kooiman assured Granny that her mistake was no doubt “inadvertent,” and treated the whole episode as some kind of feel-good story (Baumler sent a thank-you note to the cop who pulled her over, hence the media attention).
But this woman DROVE NEARLY 100 MILES PER HOUR with a 4-year-old and a 7-year-old in the car!
I wouldn’t have given her a ticket; I’d have shown her a jail cell.
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The way FX keeps showcasing Diane Kruger’s bare ass, I’m beginning to think of The Bridge as The Buttocks.
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“I do have a little bug in my crotch when it comes to [Bob] Beckel.” — Sonnie Johnson, above, being her usual moronic-yet-amusing self on Red Eye.
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Chris Matthews in an MSNBC commercial: “Liberalism always wins, eventually.”
I assume he’s talking about politics, not MSNBC ratings.
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Hypocrites of the Week: Michael Moore and Barbra Streisand
You don’t get to chew up that many resources – big mansions, chauffeured limos, private planes — and then get to lecture the rest of us about our wasteful ways.
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I realize that they were just pretending, but I nearly had a heart attack Friday when the cast of Fox’s The Five played “if you were president” and the camera settled on Andrea Tanteros (above).
The prospect of a “President Tanteros” frightens me more than any solar flare that might gobble up the Earth.
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Gary Oldman Calls Plane Crash “Feel-Good Story,”
Cracks Jokes About Israeli Ground Invasion
Actor Gary Oldman on Friday said that the plane crash in Ukraine that killed 298 people gave him “a warm feeling inside,” and that Israel’s ground invasion “allows me to sleep better at night.”
Oldman, speaking to a Tea Party gathering in …
Aww, who are we kidding? This is a fake story. We are just envious of all the attention that recent hoaxes have been getting, such as the caller who told MSNBC’s Krystal Ball on live TV that the airplane was brought down “by a blast of wind from Howard Stern’s ass,” or the bogus Empire News story about Netflix’s decision to “cancel” Orange Is the New Black.
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Dear President Obama:
I voted for you twice, but here’s your report card for your second term: D
Dear Fox News:
Yep, you are correct when you say Obama has been doing a terrible job. But here’s the thing: That does not mean that Obama voters now see things your way, because your way is still worse.
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Jill Abramson was interviewed by Fox’s Greta Van Susteren and said that she wasn’t sure why she was fired from her editor post at the New York Times.
I think I know the reason: It had to be that horrible drawl of hers. If I had to listen to Abramson’s bizarre, irritating voice every day, I’d can her, too.
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“This woman makes Ron Burgundy look like Walter Cronkite.” – Bernie Goldberg, relishing the opportunity to take a shot at Krystal Ball and MSNBC.
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Lots of bad news this week, but at least we got a bit of good news, courtesy of the NSA:
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Hell has frozen over. Three sitcoms premiered recently, and I didn’t hate any of them.
In fact, I might even watch them again, especially You’re the Worst, if only to find out how far FX will go in its crusade to lead basic cable out of PG-13 territory and into R-rated sex and nudity. Oh, the other two promising sitcoms? Married, and Welcome to Sweden.
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by Michael Hastings
Michael Hastings’s roman a clef about his days as a young intern at Newsweek magazine is very much a product of his generation: full of snark, cynicism, and — man, I’m getting tired of this one — “irony.” Hastings, who famously brought down General Stanley McChrystal with a Rolling Stone article, in Magazine creates thinly veiled characters that skewer former real-life colleagues like Fareed Zakaria and Jon Meacham, exposing their gung-ho support of Bush’s war in Iraq, and revealing how ego and career trump ethics and morality in the world of Big Media.
But Hastings the news reporter’s book is short on motivation and depth of character, which are the novelist’s bread and butter. Are the editors he mocks truly so one-dimensional and without, apparently, any redeeming qualities? Hastings’s novel is not, however, short on something else: extremely graphic, off-putting descriptions of one character’s sex fantasies. Weird. And yuck.
© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
We haven’t checked in lately with the gang on Big Brother. Let’s see what the houseguests are up to:
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Emmy Thoughts:
I have no clue how the Emmy people can possibly come up with their nominations. Now that there are 4,752 channels on cable, satellite, cell phones, tablets, and the kitchen sink, who has time to watch every show?
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I am happy to see Orange Is the New Black get Emmy love. It’s an excellent show and is unlike pretty much everything else on TV. Assuming, of course, that you have time to watch everything else on TV.
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Fans of Orphan Black are outraged that series star Tatiana Maslany was ignored. I don’t know. Maslany is good, but mostly Orphan is a special-effects gimmick show. Being upset that Maslany wasn’t nominated is like being upset that Hayley Mills didn’t win an Oscar for The Parent Trap. I take that back; I am upset that Hayley Mills didn’t win an Oscar for The Parent Trap.
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Everyone is upset about some show or some actor who got snubbed. Me, too. I would have given a nod to Lilyhammer, which has been overshadowed by its trendier cousins on Netflix, House of Cards and Orange Is the New Black.
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Silly me. I had no idea that the word “Chinaman” is considered offensive, as poor Bob Beckel found out on The Five this week. Does that mean “Frenchman” is also a no-no?
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Let’s see what Paola and Victoria are up to on Big Brother:
© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
Tiny
There’s something romantic about chucking it all and adopting a back-to-nature existence, but I’m not sure I could follow the example of the young couple in Tiny who spend a year building a 130-square-foot cabin to call home in Colorado. They filmed their project, which is part of a “tiny house” movement in which ecologically minded (or financially strapped) folk build and live in miniature homes. It’s a fantasy with allure, but — there’s not enough room for my books. Give me Dick Proenneke’s cabin in Alaska, or perhaps Jim Rockford’s trailer on the beach – small, certainly, but not that small. Release: 2013 Grade: B+
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Black Rock
It’s “girls’ night out” from hell for three women whose bonding trip to a deserted isle goes sour when they encounter some Iraq war vets. Rock asks some good questions: Is a woman ever partly responsible for her own sexual assault? Is every military veteran deserving of our respect? But after an intriguing setup, director-writer-star Katie Aselton’s story degenerates into a silly, quite literal, battle of the sexes. Release: 2013 Grade: B-
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It’s the Fourth of July and America is divided. Other countries dislike us; some even hate us. I blame this on: the Internet and the Kardashians. Not necessarily in that order.
In this country, 99-percenters watch the awful Kardashians and resent the class they symbolize, the greedy 1-percenters. In other countries, they see the awful Kardashians and hate all Americans.
We must get rid of the Kardashians. Or the Internet.
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CNN is running a series about the 1960s. Because if there is one part of American history that has been consistently ignored, it is the 1960s.
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We removed the pictures, even though we thoroughly approve of her “pubic image.”
© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
The “Beautiful Game”
While the world’s sports journalists fill our airwaves with reports about Uruguay’s Luis Suarez, the soccer-playing lout who likes to bite other players, I’m still waiting for a feel-good story about those lovable Brazilian football fans who last year decapitated a referee and put his head on a stake.
What, you hadn’t heard about that? It’s the one-year anniversary next week – Google it!
A “beautiful game,” indeed.
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The Huffington Post’s TV critics, of all people, have been on an amusing rampage. First, Maureen Ryan had an emotional meltdown (“I’m done!”) over what she perceived as a sexist new series, FX’s The Tyrant. Then the Post published an article about “overrated” TV series that included these shows, some of which you probably know: Girls, Seinfeld, Scandal, Boardwalk Empire, Orphan Black, Mad Men, Orange Is the New Black, and South Park.
You go, Post!
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Big Brother is back, and I’m pulling for Amber, pictured above. Assuming, of course, that she can make it out of that house of lunatics in one piece.
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The Huffington Post is still looking for … well, you know the drill.
© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)
by Joe McGinniss
A fatally bloated book. The case of Jeffrey MacDonald, the “all-American” young doctor who was convicted in 1979 of slaughtering his family, is fascinating, but not enough to justify 900-plus-pages that too often read like dry trial transcripts. McGinniss crams Vision with page after page of often-repetitive legal minutiae – which is fine for aspiring lawyers but a drag for the true-crime aficionado.
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