I Don’t Believe What I Just Saw

Filed under:Oh Hell No,Politics,Television — posted by Anwyn on April 17, 2011 @ 12:31 am

This past Tuesday’s episode of The Good Wife guest-starred Fred Thompson as an actor/politician/lawyer never addressed by name, though listed in the closed-captioning as “Thomas.” Clever.

The plot showed Lockhart/Gardner representing an Underdog against an Evil Oil Company based on work conducted in Venezuela, until their case is taken over by Fred Thompson because Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez nationalized the Underdog company. And Fred Thompson is his lawyer. And Hugo Chavez appears (from the neck down, anyway) via videoconference as a lunatic who babbles about all the Americans wanting his oil except Courtney Love. And the true-blue liberal Lockhart/Gardner lawyers stare at him as though he were a particularly odious bug … while Fred Thompson acts as his lawyer with a genial smile disguising a pirahna mentality and, to wrap up, proclaims, “He’s really a nice guy once you get to know him. Sings like an angel.”

Right, because it’s Republicans who sing the praises of Hugo Chavez while Democrats just deplore him, isn’t it?

I am so disappointed that Fred Thompson agreed to do this lying piece of script.

If it was the show’s intent to make a good-faith showing that not everybody in Hollywood is on Sean Penn’s side of this argument, then they should have stopped at making that argument and not spun into it the vicious lie that Republicans, reasonably well-known ones at that, are. Disgusting.

Update: I should clarify that I’m disappointed Thompson agreed to do this hack hit script as himself. As a well-known Republican. Had he been playing a character, John Smith Lawyer who came in to take over the case, well, that’s an acting job and not a hatchet job. But that’s not what this was. His name was never mentioned; Josh Charles’s character walks up to him in disbelief, clearly recognizing him as Fred Thompson; the federal judge in the plot fawns all over him for “inspiring young people” on Law and Order. Sad.

This Passes for “Education?”

Filed under:Jerks,Oh Hell No,Politics,Priorities,WTF? — posted by Anwyn on May 20, 2010 @ 6:55 am

[The teacher] planned to base final exams on the Michael Moore film, “Sicko“.

A single conservative student objected and also says that her teacher called her a “teabagger” earlier in the year, during a different controversy. But what manages, incredibly, to bother me even more than the choice of movie and the public insult of a student by her teacher, is this:

…Blessman distributed to students in her Senior Literature and Composition class…

So for a Literature and Composition class, the final was … a movie.

The teacher should have been fired before anybody discovered she was pushing her odious political bias on her students. She should have been fired when it was discovered she is not a teacher of literature and composition. Good luck getting that done now.

Early Billy Joel

Filed under:Ew,Music,Oh Hell No — posted by Anwyn on February 22, 2010 @ 12:47 pm

Pre-prefrontal-cortex Billy Joel, by the description:

Yes, that is Billy Joel, wearing fur pelts and posing with Small in a meat locker. And while such packaging might seem at best laughable, you ain’t experienced nuthin’ ’til you’ve heard the thing.

“Wonder Woman” kicks off the record, and we should be able to tell we’re in trouble, right from the get-go. A swirl of amplified wah-wah noise greets us, like a haze of pot smoke from an open van door. Out come the fur pelt-wearin’ Long Island Huns—Jon Small flailing around, beating anything he can find with his manly drum-clubs, and Joel coaxing noises from his organ rig, just like Jimi Hendrix, only without the sexiness or melodic intent. “Wonder Woman with your skin so fair!” Joel shouts. “Wonder Woman with your long, red hair! You have the velvet touch! You have what I want so much! My love is burnin’ fire! My need is my desire!”

It gets a lot worse from there. The prefrontal cortex, by the way, is “implicated in planning complex cognitive behaviors, personality expression, decision making and moderating correct social behavior.[citation needed] The basic activity of this brain region is considered to be orchestration of thoughts and actions in accordance with internal goals.” Goals such as creating a hit record and correct social behavior such as … none of what’s described in that album. The prosecution rests.

I also didn’t know that Billy Joel’s first wife was poached from his bandmate. Apparently he never really was any more normal than other Hollyweirds. Sigh.

H/t Daddyman.

What Happens When the Government and the Medical Establishment Are One

Filed under:Mothering,Oh Hell No,Politics,Priorities — posted by Anwyn on September 8, 2009 @ 10:00 pm

Oh, and when the government’s also responsible for building an extension onto your housing: 1) If you disagree with or question the government doctors, the government social workers take your children; 2) If you question the government’s failure to provide the proper housing, the government social workers say you can’t care for your child because you lack adequate housing and they take your children.

This is chilling.

Via Instapundit.



image: detail of installation by Bronwyn Lace