First Gene Cernan and now Batman. Are there any heroes left?
I love this:
I assume this was West's idea. Someone who played himself on such shows as The Simpsons and Family Guy probably didn't take himself very seriously.
Speaking of fallen icons, America's "Newspaper of Record" has about as much credibility as that former mainstay of American journalism, The Weekly World News. This is from an article written by comedian Lee Camp demolishing a Times article about himself:
This past Thursday the New York Times vomited up a hit piece on little ol’ me – a guy who has been doing stand-up comedy for nearly 20 years and thought maybe that comedy could be used to inform and inspire audiences, rather than just make fun of the differences between men and women.
At first when you’re the center of a smear job, you’re annoyed and frustrated. But as I read further through the piece, I realized it was a master class in how to write propaganda for one of the most “respected” news outlets in our country. I’m actually grateful it was written about me because now I can see with my own eyes exactly how the glorious chicanery is done. I count no less than 15 lies, manipulations, and false implications in this short article, a score that even our fearless prevaricator-in-chief Donald Trump would envy.
So here now is a “How To” for writing propaganda for the New York Times – using the smear piece against me as an example.
It really is worth it to take five minutes and read the entire article.
Personal update:
I'm back to a sort-of normal. I cannot do any real physical activity for more than a few minutes, and I can't take direct sun at all. But I'm able to get to work and make it back home to watch TV, so that makes me better off than most of our neighbors. I'm on some drug that Johnson & Johnson thinks is worth $110 a pill wholesale. (At three pills a day, that comes to $10,000/month.) Of course, I'm not paying that. In fact, I'm not paying anything. J&J has a program for poor sots like me so I can get it for free. When I read up on the drug's side effects, I wondered if I would even be able to continue working. But so far, they've been mild to the point of non-existent. In fact, I'm wondering if the stuff is even working as many of the side effects are the result of the destruction and flushing of all the defective white blood cells floating around in my bloodstream. My last round of blood work was inconclusive; the blood work I had done today will show if I'm one of the lucky few who will not experience any of the common side effects, or if I'm one of the unlucky few for whom the drug does nothing. I have no idea what happens if it's the latter. Everyone seems to have placed all my eggs in one basket.
Central Florida had one of the worst droughts ever over the winter. The wet season seemed like it would never get here. Most of our plants were dead or nearly so; even some of the trees in the woods behind us died completely. About two weeks ago, we finally got some rain. Now we wish we were back in the drought. So far, flooding has been minimal because the ground is so dry, most of the water is soaking in as fast as it can come down. But that won't last forever. The good news is that most of our plants came back. We lost a few and I will likely replace a couple others that are so beat down and deformed that even if they recover, they will never be anything but ugly. I'll do a little trimming and give them one last chance, then if they don't shape up it's off to the compost bin.
Well, that's all I have for now.
