TV Shows In An Emergency

 

One thing I have been thankful for during our recent unpleasantness is television, believe it or not.

If you are anything like me and my wife, you've been watching a lot of TV, especially Netflix and Amazon Prime.

Amazon Prime has a lot of older shows that we were able to catch up on.  Like Larry David's  Curb Your Enthusiasm or as I like to call it, Seinfeld With Cuss Words. It is a very funny show, particularly the season in which Larry is in the Broadway play "The Producers" and the season he does a Seinfeld reunion show just to win back Cheryl.

 

We also watched every episode of "30 Rock".  Everybody in the show was drop dead funny, including Alec Baldwin. My favorite character is Kenneth Parcell who once said, "I don't choose Democrat or Republican because choosing is a sin so I just write in the Lord's name."

 

However, we have spent a lot of time over at Netflix and watched their shows.  If you are running out of shows to watch, here are some.

 

Broadchurch:  This is a show about a British beach town, sort of like a Panama City Beach where people eat fish and chips for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  A boy is found dead on the beach and the town's police detective played by Olivia Colman springs into action with her Scottish boss.  I recommend watching this show with the subtitles on because it is really British if know what I mean.

 

The Crown:     The life of Queen Elizabeth. Her father, King Lane Pryce, dies suddenly and she becomes Queen.  It is actually a well done show with Olivia Colman as the Queen. It presents Prince Phillip as kind of a jerk. Prince Charles is prissy.  Prince Andrew shows up with his friend "Epstein".

Dark:  This is a comedy filled with the humor Germans are known for.   Just kidding. It is a show about time travel, 33 years both ways. I think. I'm not sure what this show is about. An apocalypse happens and then it doesn't. People are killed and then they reappear.  It is just a mess. It is the type of show that would make David Lynch say, "That's weird".  Stars Maja Schone, Jordis Triebel, and Olivia Coman.

 

 

Outer Banks:  I bet you didn't know that the Outer Banks region of North Carolina was so exciting. This is a story about high school students who look 30 years old and they are looking for gold. It is the typical rich snobs versus poor but good looking troubled youth story except this time, one of the snobs falls in love with a poor good looking kid and together they survive a hurricane. The power of awesome looks is no match for mother nature.  Also, all of the adults are either corrupt or stupid. Sometimes, they are both, including the character Olivia Colman plays.

 

 

Unsolved Mysteries:  I had forgotten how much I loved this show. Netflix brought it back with 6 shows, 5 of which are great.  There's one about UFOs  you can skip because everybody looks like they are in on a bit to get on TV.  One of the episodes was about a local Georgia hair stylist who just vanished one day.  Unfortunately her remains were found a year after her disappearance by Georgian who gives the most Georgian explanation of how he found the poor soul.

"Well, me and my buddy were going to work on The Fellowship Hall of the church. I got there before he did and he called me wanting to know if I wanted a biscuit from that place down the road and I said yes because they make good biscuits so he got about four biscuits and brought it to me and we ate one of the biscuits before we started to work on The Fellowship Hall of the church.[Two hours later]  Then we decided to take a break from working on The Fellowship Hall of the church and we went outside to eat the other biscuits when we saw the vultures or something flying down in the woods a ways. We took our biscuits and went into the woods. There we found the remains. We called the police and finished our biscuits before they got here."

Unlike most reboots, this show is better than the original except it is missing Robert Stack. Current host Olivia Colman just doesn't work.

 

 

Peaky Blinders:  This is a sort of like The Sopranos except it takes place in England after World War I and you can't understand what anybody says so you definitely have make sure you have the subtitles on. This series is very violent. Stabbings, shootings. beatings, and bombs exploding happen every fifteen minutes. There's a lot of cussing because after World War I, people said a bad word, a lot. Everybody was cursing, including Olivia Colman. They have a modern English rock soundtrack that for some reason fits. They have a real cool theme song called "Red Right Hand".  All of the thugs have bad haircuts, including one guy whose job it is to announce "We're the Peaky (bad word) Blinders".  That doesn't sound too scary to me. It's like saying "We're the (bad word) Teletubbies".

 

 Finally, here's the one we've watched on our new streaming service, Disney Plus.

The Mandalorian:  If you haven't seen this, you must. It is not only the best web series, it is the best Star Wars anything since, well, since the original Star Wars. The Mandalorian is basically a work show. A guy going from job to job with a baby that's fifty years old.  In case you didn't know, the baby looks like Yoda, so some people (like me) have been calling him "Baby Yoda", but that is wrong.  He is referred to as "The Child".  Anyway, "The Child" confirms that Yoda did get busy, if you know what I mean. Let's just say the force was with him, yeah come on.  Who is the  mother?  Olivia Colman.

 

The Next Next President

 

With the selection of Senator Kamala Harris of California as his running mate, Joe Biden managed to do something historic and predictable at the same time. 

Senator Harris is the first woman of color as a Vice Presidential candidate. Seeing that the last two Democratic Presidential candidates were an African-American man and a woman that doesn't seem to have the sis-boom-bah that was hoped for, but it is still the first. 

Everybody said Harris was the logical pick, mainly due to the quaint old logic called ticket balancing. Male/Female. White/POC. Old/Young. East Coast/West Coast. Glad hander/Would run over her grandmother and yours to get what she wants.

I suppose within the arbitrary parameters Biden imposed on himself-to have his own binder filled with women-Harris was the logical choice. After all, Biden wasn't really looking for the best qualified person was he?  

He didn't even pretend that Harris was the most qualified person "who just happened to be a woman".

Just about everybody has been lamenting the fact that politics now is so nasty and everybody is so polarized, yet Biden didn't (publicly) explore a possible unity ticket with a disenchanted Republican like John Kasich or Mitt Romney.

Nope, Biden didn't sniff Andrew Cuomo, although upon further reflection that is probably a good thing.

After all the unrest this summer and the fact that Jim Clyburn saved Biden's bacon, it was obvious Biden would select a woman of color as his running mate.

Which led to the odd lists that came out.  I mean on what planet is Stacy Abrams qualified to be Vice President on? I mean really. If she had won the Governor's race here in Georgia, then maybe. Spiro Agnew only had a couple of years of experience and so did Sarah Palin. 

I was interested in Susan Rice.  She's never run for office before. The last time we remember seeing her, she was lying to us about Benghazi. It wasn't even a good lie. It was a stupid lie. It was a lie only a Clinton could make up and expect you to believe.  I guess that's a quality a politician has to have.

What I liked about Rice is that she has a son going to Sanford and apparently he's a regular Alex P. Keaton. (Note: Years ago there was situation comedy called "Family Ties" and it was about two former hippies raising their son who was a Reagan Republican. His name was Alex P. Keaton.)  I thought it would have been sweet to have a Democrat admit that they love someone who is a Trump supporter.

What it came down to was Harris had the better resume and was on the track during the first part of the election cycle.  

The New York Times presented the news like she discovered the Covid-19 vaccine.  It wasn't quite over the top like Obama's nomination was presented.  She wasn't the change we were all looking for but make no mistake:  The New York Times thinks she'll be the next, next President.

If Biden wins, she will be. No doubt in my mind. Despite the fact Biden can ride a bicycle, he's lost a few miles per hour on his fastball, if you know what I mean. I met pundit Jeff Greenfield one time and he said (this was back when Reagan was President) his sources in The White House would tell him "The President was in outer space today".  Reagan was 74 at the time, four years younger than Biden is now.

Don't be surprised to turn on the news and hear, "A Silver Alert has been issued for President Joe Biden today. Sources say he just "wandered off". The alert mentions he might ask you if you've seen Corn Pop".

If Biden loses, unless Harris does something really bad, she'll be the nominee in 2024.  If you think "Trump Fatigue" is bad now, just wait. Harris is smart enough to distance herself from Biden if he loses. She got on the ticket after practically calling him a racist and at least hinting Biden was a predator. Napoleon Dynamite would say she has skills.

Which leads to Harris biggest problem.  Is she this progressive San Francisco liberal or is she a centrist? Who knows?

One minute she's this tough prosecutor who throws people in jail for marijuana, the next she's bragging about all the doobies she smoked in college listening to rap albums from rap artists that hadn't even put out any rap albums yet. That was some strong stuff.

Of course, President Trump, who if he has a talent it is branding, has already put  the Biden-Harris ticket into his Nickname generator and it came out with "Slow Joe and Phony Kamala".  Not one of his best, but it is fairly accurate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mutually Exclusive

I have figured out what our problem is:  our problem is that we all hate each other.

Not in the bad way, of course.  We just mainly disgust each other with our selfish ways.

Let me correct that. We are disgusted with YOUR selfish ways.  Our ways are logical, loving, and driven by science .

That's why we haven't been able to "defeat" COVID-19.  We haven't been able to come together six feet away and use hand sanitizer.

You will noticed I didn't use the four letter "M" word: Mask.  I am so tired of hearing about masks. I wear one when I'm out because I don't want to be accused of causing somebody to be admitted into the hospital because I didn't know I was sick because I didn't have any symptoms.  Plus, I want to get into stores.

I also stand 6 feet behind people.  I also use hand sanitizer but I haven't lately because the ten gallon drum of hand sanitizer I got at Costco has been recalled.

So don't blame me for any spikes in Georgia.  I figure I fall in the same category as protestors against social injustice. COVID-19 won't mess with me.

The problem is everybody should be on the same page, but we are not. 

I was joking when I said we all hate each other.  The problem is we all have separate interests and we are all committed to our interests.  And the interests are mutually exclusive.

Back in my insurance days, we used to deny benefits if a procedure was mutually exclusive to another procedure.  For example,a  doctor cannot charge for an arm amputation and arm fracture repair. It has to be one or the other.

In non-medical terms, you can't flip a coin and have it land as heads and tails. It is one or the other.

A lot of our controversies in the period of great distress are like this. For example, here in Cobb County, our public schools will all be virtual this fall.

Everybody agrees children are not at great risk of contracting COVID-19 and dying. (By everyone, I mean doctors who don't believe the devil is running around and raping people.)  However, it is not known if children can contract COVID-19 and be non-symptomatic. Therefore, they could give it to adults. You can follow the chain from there.

However, everyone also agrees that keeping children away from school is harmful to children.

The superintendent of schools originally said parents could decide if they wanted to send their children to the physical school building or do virtual learning. 

This caused a great uproar from those that think your little Billy (are there any little boys named Billy anymore?) is a walking virus carrier and will gladly infect everyone in the school, which in turn would infect everyone in the county.

They have a point. Even in best of days, kids are petri dishes.  A lot of my memory of elementary schools involves classmates and their spontaneous vomiting.  You can see why people who work in education are a little wary of Billy especially if you throw in the snotty nose and the non-covered coughs.

Little Billy has an option: sit in front a computer and have virtual learning.

The superintendent decided to do virtual learning with no other options given to parents.

He had to weigh two options: the health of the county versus the future development of children.  Those are mutually exclusive right now.  You can't have both.  He chose the health of the county.

But make no mistake, children will be impacted. We don't know how bad.

Let me add this:  I'm glad I don't have to make these decisions. I don't want to be responsible for a dramatic uptick in COVID- 19 cases.  I also don't want to be responsible for a lost generation of children.

It is the same with masks.

Americans are a group of diverse individualistic people.  The Pilgrims came here because they didn't like being told what to do and how to act. We are people that don't like to be told what to do.  It is baked into our DNA.  I hate to break it to everyone but following orders and mandates from the dopey governors with no question is mutually exclusive to Americans.   Especially when you hear masks are great one day and then they are bad on the other.  They prevent you from getting COVID-19, no wait, they prevent you from giving anyone COVID-19.  Just shut up and wear the mask.

Just shut up doesn't work well with a part of the population.

It also does not help that the various state mandates are arbitrary and capricious. It picks winners and losers.  In Nevada, the winner was Caesar's Palace and the loser was a church. On top of that, the enforcement of the mandates are arbitrary and capricious as well.  It is okay to protest, that is your right under the Constitution because that right does not go away due to a novel virus.  Apparently going to choir practice is your right under the Constitution but it goes away because of the virus.

So until we can figure out a win-win for everybody, I'm afraid we'll still be at each other throats. Masked. Six feet away.