Monthly Archives: August 2015

Coming Soon: Bad Literary Adaption Television

CBS is making a Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer television series. Sure why not? The characters are out of copyright, and it’s hard to come up with original ideas. What other literary adaptions would we like to see? I’ve got a few ideas. To find out what they might be, head on over to Happy Nice People Time where you can catch up with all my television recaps, reviews and newsy items. It’s the best source of writing about television since that other television site you used to love went belly up.

Then when you’re done there, come on back here and set a spell as they used to say on some 1960’s sitcom. There’s more to see on this blog, and if you want to support my endeavors, you can buy one of my books for far less than what you’d pay for a small popcorn at the movies. I’m not going to beg or anything, but my cats can’t survive on used shoe leather forever.

Riced Out: Manufacturing Outrage Part II

As promised, this is Part II of my examination of how Anne Rice is now peddling her rants about “gangster bullies” on the internet by adding charges of “political correctness” to the mix. Please read Part I if you haven’t already. It will save us both time.

But first enjoy this pretty picture of a sunset. And take a deep breath. You’ll need it.

This is what I almost missed trying to write this post.

Why am I doing this? How are these my monkeys? What do I care if someone is wrong on the internet? Read on and I’ll think you get it.

Continue reading Riced Out: Manufacturing Outrage Part II

A Very Peculiar Lynching — Anne Rice, Political Correctness, and Free Speech, Part I

What does Anne Rice have in common with the Donald? They both think "political correctness" is a threat to freedom.

From the GOP Debate 8/6/15:

Megyn Kelly: You’ve called women you don’t like “fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals…. Your Twitter account has several disparaging comments about women’s looks. You once told a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees. Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president….?

Donald Trump: …I think the big problem this country has is being politically correct.

———

Mob: (a) a riotous or disorderly crowd of people

— Collins English Dictionary

  • Lynch: To put to death by mob action without legal authority.
  • — Dictionary.com

Recently several media outlets on the web have reported bestselling author Anne Rice’s stand against what she characterizes as “internet lynch mobs” practicing what she calls “censorship by bully” in the name of “political correctness.”

While Rice  has spoken about this issue before, her most recent call to action to her Facebook followers has involved the controversial Jewish-nazi romance novel, For Such a Time. FSAT offers a happily ever after ending to the holocaust after  “blonde and blue-eyed Jewess,” (from the book cover) Hadassah Benjamin, converts to Christianity and plans a future with  the former (fictional) commandant of Theresienstadt, who has also accepted Jesus into his heart (Glory Hallelujah) and been “forgiven by God” (quote from text) for the mass murder stuff. And oh yeah, Hadassah had been his prisoner for most of the novel, and he threatened to send her back to Dachau.

Continue reading A Very Peculiar Lynching — Anne Rice, Political Correctness, and Free Speech, Part I

Screenshots of a Conversation OR I Was Interrogating The Text From The Wrong Perspective

Some troll, not Anne Rice, but one of the gamergate boys she regularly sends out to harass anyone who’s crossed her because that’s her thing, (yes I know how insane that sounds) is posting lies about me in the comment section of an article on The Guardian because I said some things in reference to the subject of the article that he apparently disagrees with. I’m not sure, since his comments weren’t about his actual opinion, just about people he apparently wants a flame war with.

Specifically, one of the lies he’s telling is  about my facebook posts to Anne Rice’s facebook fan page (basically he said that I was a crazy person whose posts had so upset Ms Rice that she had to stop posting.)  So here are the screenshots of what I actually said and how she responded. This was about that holocaust nazi love story written by Kate Breslin, and my remark about Breslin’s wanting to use it in schools is true. She was giving away copies for Yom Ha Shoah to libraries and schools. Now that’s chutzpah! And no, I don’t think a public school would touch it, but there are lots of private religious schools in the south where textbooks aren’t very factually based. (Update: Think of this as the prologue to posts Part I and Part II on Anne Rice’s facebook battle in her continuing war against people who leave negative book reviews immoral internet lynch mob bully gangsters.

Anne Rice’s response. She’s wrong about her entire description of what’s going on, in ways it would take several paragraphs to explain, but it’s her facebook page so she can say what she wants:

Continue reading Screenshots of a Conversation OR I Was Interrogating The Text From The Wrong Perspective

The Last Daily Show (with Jon Stewart) and the Last Days of Jack Stein

On the surface, it’s not easy to see much connection between my father and Jon Stewart. Like Stewart, my father was a Jew from the NY metro area who loved his country and was skeptical about politicians of all stripes. He was a World War II veteran who’d been willing to give his life for his country, and understood that his country had given much to him. Growing up during the depression he visited museums, and botonical gardens which back then had free or extremely low admission prices. He graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, and went to (then) tuition-free City College, getting a bachelors in science. After the army, the GI Bill helped him earn another degree, in optometry, from Columbia University. My parents, with their first child, lived for a while in the Queensbridge public housing project.

Like Jon Stewart, he had a wry sense of humor and an intolerance for bullshit. He was not an especially “political” man although he cared about the issues of the day. He read The New York Times, and The New York Post before it got Murdochized. He wrote well thought out letters to The Times, which often got published.  The last couple were typed by my mother on the computer. My father never liked the computer, but he could no longer find a ribbon for his Remington Rand.

The Remington Rand still needs a new ribbon.

He always voted, despite his mistrust of most in elected office. He was against the war in Vietnam. While he never went to a protest march, we think he may have been (secretly) proud when his wife and daughters did. He thought Nixon was a bastard who got what was coming to him. He loved Bill Clinton, and hated the hypocrisy of the Republicans for nearly destroying the country trying to bring him down.

After the Supreme Court negated the will of the people in the year 2000, something shifted. Those 10,000 Floridians who accidentally voted for Buchanan because of a confusing ballot could have been him – elderly Jews, smart people somewhat befuddled by all the newfangled technology, people who had played by the rules, veterans, parents of veterans, deeply patriotic serial voters every one. Their intentions were obvious, and for their votes not to count felt like a betrayal, and when five Supreme Court justices stopped the recount and declared W the winner, it seemed like nothing less than a coup – an attempt to finish what they’d started with the impeachment.

It was after that that my father first subscribed to The Nation. Before he’d viewed them suspiciously, as he did much of the press he felt didn’t sufficiently support Israel. He became a particular fan of Vincent Bugliosi, whose outrage at the Court’s decision mirrored his own. Then he discovered MSNBC. As for when he started watching The Daily Show, I’d like to think that it was no later than the fall of 2002, after his cancer surgery, when I was staying at the house, and that I was the one who turned him on to it. I don’t remember precisely, but that’s my story.

I do remember that in November of 2004, after he found out the cancer was back and spreading, and  Bush “won” the presidency a second time – likely due to more hijinks in Florida and Ohio – it was Jon Stewart who got him through both of these horrific events.

By the late spring of 2005, he was mostly bedridden and sleeping more than a geriatric house cat, but he was usually awake for Stewart’s monologue. My sister, who was with him the night before he died, remembers watching the show with him. He might have been too weak to laugh, but she swears she saw him smirk.

Tomorrow will be the last night of Jon Stewart’s tenure. It will also be the 10th anniversary of my father’s death.

Thank you, Jon Stewart.

(Hey, if you liked this post or anything you see for free around here, you can show your love by maybe buying a super-cheap book.)