J. Richard Singleton's Blog, page 10

How great is it that Repubs are rallying to support Vladimar Putin?

Maybe the giant crying bear at the Sochi closing events was a cry for help?

First George W. Bush looked into Putin's soul and declared he was a good guy. America can trust him. Now that Putin is showing himself as the real-life Bond villain that he is, Republicans are in the awkward position of having to ally themselves with a man who does very bad things against Americans to illustrate their opposition to the Democratic President. (They also became concerned about Islamic terrorists' civil rights and the national debt around 2009.) Obama's attempts to prevent the US from being entangled in another foreign conflict--or "leading from behind"--are thus a sign of his weakness, not a sign of PAYING ATTENTION.

Maybe Obama should send 100,000 America troops into a foreign country, then stay there for ten years (after first disbanding the local army--we don't need those guys, right?), losing hundreds of billions due to incompetence and graft while American infrastructure collapses? Oops. Been done!

You know what's great about "leading from behind"? You don't get shot. Obama is attempting to prevent Americans from getting shot, as near as I can tell. Republicans are living in a weird, 1984-style society where the shutdown was a good idea and America should invade other countries with no thought as to how it will effect either our short-term or long-term foreign policy. Sending drones into Pakistan is terrible--send some troops in there, right? The drone strikes are endangering our relationship with Islamic allies--unlike declaring war unilaterally, which is just common sense.

Oh, and why are we even listening to Dick Cheney or Con Rice on this matter? It feels like they should fade away, and never offer any additional wisdom on global political events again. Feels like they should be working harder to redeem their legacy, not reminding us all that they still exist. Try to become irrelevant, neocons--that's something you should be aiming for!

If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all. When you're a fuckin' dumbass, stand aside and let someone with some grasp of recent American history to take the wheel, even if it means "leading from behind."

Did anyone say "Oscars"?!

Predictions for Oscars:

If Jennifer Lawrence wins an Oscar, Anne Hathaway will attack her in the parking lot and take it. That's her plan for getting one.

Mia Farrow would complain about Cate Blanchett not condemning Woody Allen in her acceptance speech for "Blue Jasmine."

You know who will be in the "In Memoriam" segment? Dead celebrities! Every year! Who's murdering them?

Ellen DeGeneres will offer twerking jokes. Whether she, herself, will twerk remains to be seen.

Ellen Page will greet DeGeneres with the lesbian secret handshake. Welcome to the team. Fly into the Danger Zone.

The black chick with the interesting backstory will win. I'm not interested in looking up her name. Lupe, I think. Lupe. The irony that the Academy will give another Oscar to a black person for playing a slave while congratulating itself for its progressiveness will be lost on everyone.

Oh, black people might've seen "12 Years a Slave." That is all. The only black person to have seen "Gravity" was Sandra Bullock's kid. This will not be your year either, Tyler Perry.

Mila Kunis will be too busy performing oral sex to attend the Oscars.

Every time Philip Seymour Hoffman is mentioned, the audience will go insane with applause. Are they happy he's dead? Did he owe all these celebrities money?

Pharell's hat will be allowed to continue its reign of terror.

Seth MacFarlane will have to settle for "Dads." What? Low ratings? Gonna be cancelled? Well, he still has his money pile.

Idia Menzel will kill it with "Let It Go."

The Loud Music Trial, Justice Largely Served

There's now handwringing from civil rights activists because he wasn't convicted in the death of Jordan Davis. There seems further confusion as to how a jury could convict him of attempted murder of three men but not the actual murder of the fourth. (It was a mistrial on this count.) Really it's not that confusing. The difference is that the white guy will be going to jail for a very long time, and the number of rightwingers hailing this Negro slayer as a hero are substantially smaller. There is wide concession that this guy is a dumbass who should be in jail. The difference was that Zimmerman was involved in a physical altercation while this was name-calling and perhaps idle threats between the parties. The difference is that this white man was shooting and multiple unarmed men while they were trying to escape the hostile situation. (Oh, and the black men turned down their rape music upon the white man's request. Even in comparison to Zimmerman, this white man wanted the situation to escalate.) After shooting at a bunch of black guys, he did not wait for the police to arrive--rather he went to a hotel and ordered out for pizza. Local place. If the races were reversed, and just the races, the Negro Dunn would be having his armed swabbed for a needle for murdering that unarmed white boy--and attempting to murder three other white guys, whose fun night out was violently disturbed by a black man's madness. That said, it is within the realm of possibility that Dunn did see a gun--and that was why no conviction was reached in that case. (In another rare case, the prosecution over-prosecuted a white person in connection to the murder of a black man. A manslaughter conviction was more achievable.) He had been in a verbal confrontation with four young guys, and he lived in a state where any idiot or escaped mental patient can buy and carry a gun--including himself. It might've been a gun--or a cellphone or a finger. There is nothing in Dunn's history that would suggest he fantasized about shooting a black man. He had no previous connection to Davis. He was not trying to rob Davis--nor did he take anything from Davis. This young man's parents family want their son's name cleared. They want an acknowledgement that he was murdered, and he'd done nothing to provoke the shooting. This is not necessarily possible in a liberal democracy, where we are suppose to give the accused the benefit of the doubt. The solution, perhaps, is to give more young black men the benefit of the doubt, not remove that benefit from schlubby white guys. Whatever darkness inhabiting Dunn's heart that led him to want to try to kill those men, the rest of us will never know.

What other kind of shenanigans can Ellen Page get into?

It feels like she came out years ago, right. It's like discovering Shirley Temple was still alive and had just died.

The reason beyond how sporty she was was that she was never particularly enthused talking about the sexy guys who she was dating in the past--something that so many of us undoubtedly thought was ironic detachment. She dated the sexiest man in Sweden, which makes one wonder if Alexander Foreign Name turned her into a Lilith Fair attendee. (Great music, by the way.)

I get the creepy feeling that this was meant to force herself back into the public eye. Jennifer Lawrence has really stolen her thunder on the 20-something "It Girl" role. Unlike Page, Lawrence will be around forever, having been nominated for TWO Oscars before she was old enough to drink--her humor, grace, beauty (and height) have catapulted her several slots above the Canadian. Really, Lawrence is Meryl Streep with great cans. (Love you, Jennifer.) Jennifer Lawrence is the Kate Upton of great actresses.

To promote Whip It a few years back, she did a pseudo-lesbian photoshoot with Director Drew Barrymore, which begs he question: Was that offensive? Not offensive because watching hot chicks go to town on each other is offensive, but offensive because they were using someone else's sexual identity to draw men to a romcom. Turns out one of those ladies was actually gay, which made it less bad.

Oh, and when will Ellen Page come out as a secret American? That'll be shocking. What if she isn't a Canadian at all!?! Think about that.

Forget Bridgegate. Is Chris Christie still stuck in high school?

In an interview, Christie both mentioned he was exercising when he heard the news that one of his assistants and oldest friends has proof that he knowingly closed a bridge in political retaliation. He went on to point out he was a high school athlete and an overachiever in high school. Really it feels like Christie just wants us all to remember he used to be athletic. Okay, good. We're all happy for you, Christie. It still feels like cheating that he got gastric bypass rather than devoting the rest of his life to diet and exercising. This demonstrates just a different kind of weakness on the New Jersey governor's part beyond his original weakness of gluttony.

His ridiculous defense, including spreading rumors about the guy citing his high school social studies teacher's innuendo about dishonesty.

But, really, he's now the guy who keeps thinking about high school. He's the governor. Can't he move on? He is literally the most successful graduating member OF HIS CLASS! Okay, you won...soon you'll lose--but you won in high school!

Is Lex Luthor already attacking Batman vs. Superman?

Feels like Jesse Eisenberg already played Lex Luthor in The Social Network, right? (They certainly are taking the character in a different direction.) I mean, Amy Adams will just push Luthor over. There. Defeated. End credits.

What I seriously loathe is how this is turning into a lazy Justice League movie--with rumors of a Green Lantern showing up too. It's bad enough for Wonder Woman to interrupt the epic bromance between the World's Finest.  Marvel did one awesome thing: They created a massive network of superheroes that can cross-pollinate each other's movies and is now on the TV-verse. Their movies are also largely, well, good. Meanwhile DC keeps bombing--I'm looking at you, Jonah Hex and Green Lantern. Get outta here, you guys.

Also there's the problem that Snyder's canonical Man of Steel is supposed to be a "first contact" movie. There aren't supposed to be any other aliens here before the arrival of the Kryptonians--so what of the Green Lantern Corps.? (This is related to Batman siting out the activities depicted in Man of Steel.)

Of Madonna and Niggers

It is interesting how "nigger" and it's variants have long been used in America to denote the lowest reaches of American society. I have so rarely stooped to such a crash level. People who are at the bottom are "scumbags," not "niggers." Weak or obnoxious men are not "faggots" (which was a lesson both Isaiah Washington and Ann Coulter needed to learn). Dimwitted people are not "retards"--very few developmentally disabled people try to appear on reality TV.

At a certain point, it really is rich black people mocking poor black people, rappers and pro-athletes demonstrating they're still "street"--even though Jennifer Lopez no longer parks her Jag in the street. It is totally asinine, and completely detrimental both to American society and black people to tolerate such idiocy. This goes into identity--and blacks claiming they can "reclaim" a word if only they use it as a term of endearment. That one person has the "right" to use a word but not another is a degree of nuance that liberals oddly enough do not understand. So this should be abandoned completely because it's just easier.

Throughout her long career, Madonna has lacked identity. She has positioned herself as the role of the constant teen, always redefining herself...while pushing 60--that's right. This is truly a desperate necessity, thus is the nature of the pop music industry--even though her relationship with younger men is a symptom of her emotional immaturity. Meanwhile calling Madonna "a racist" tends to ignore that she'd done more to help black people than many black people: She adopted two black kids, no strings attached. Racism has gotten more confusing in our so-called post-racial America.

This is the constant stream of wiggahs being created in our society: White people now think they're "down with it," which is about as offensive as rich blacks believing they have suffered the sting of racism as their forebears had. When Gwyneth Paltrow used the word "nigger" in a Twitter post a few years back, she really was quoting a song. If black people degrade themselves, whites will get on board. The versatility of the human languages allows for the constant creation of new slurs, making it additionally pointless.

That the kid Kanye allegedly beaten up was apparently using the term "nigger" as a derogatory term is an example of how little progress has been made in America. He then used the insult "nigger lover" on Kardasian suggests that this young man is both mentally unstable and stuck in the 1960s--and Kim Kardasian took the time off from destroying American culture to be a victim of some good ole fashioned American racism. For once in Kanye's life, he accomplished something awesome: Beating that kid up.

If Ricky Gervais had hosted this year's Golden Globes.

The Fey-Poeher pairing was pretty funny. Don't get me wrong. But I missed Gervais's sharp-tongue ridiculing of Hollywood pretentiousness. I thought I would imagine an alternate universe, where Ricky would've been given his rightful due, and here's how the night went down:He would point out how much Amy Poeher looks like Justin Bieber. “That’s right. You know you look like’em, love.”

He would mock Steve Carell’s post-Office career. “Not so easy, is it? Not so easy to be in movies.” This would then be followed up by him bringing out the cast of "Anchorman 2" onstage, then he would tell the cast of "Anchorman 2" to leave.

Tell everyone at the ceremony to save their leftovers for the Somali fellow's family, then he would tell Sandra Bullock not to try to adopt him. He's a grown man.Ricky Gervais broke out his Sean Penn jokes. Sean Penn doesn't get jokes, so he slugged Ricky Gervais.He would call Mila Kunis a whore. No context. He would just get onstage and call her a whore.

He would tell Jennifer Lawrence not to trip this time…. Then he would totally trip Jennifer Lawrence.Did anyone say “Paul Walker death jokes”?

He would call Mel Gibson, get him on speaker phone, then break out his Mel Gibson jokes. Because you know he’s got a lot of them.Woody Allen would be mentioned, and Gervais's head would proceed to explode. (Fortunately Mia Farrow's son filled the vacuum and called him a pedophile.)Slave jokes! Slave jokes! Slave jokes!

Where do I apply to be that perv in "50 Shades"?

So that Aussie dropped out of the "50 Shades of Grey" film, and that can only mean one thing: They're canceling the film. Good.

Charlie Hunnam was actually a good pick. Hell, I'm a little gay for him. Did you see him in "Pacific Rim"? Oh my God. I just wanted to fight Kaji with him. I just want to stand next to him and get his sloppy seconds, right? On the other hand, now the rumor that he dropped out was that he couldn't live up to the role of Christian Grey. (By "live up," I mean the rumor is that he has a small penis.)

I think a lot more people objected to Dakota Johnson's casting. She's one of those girls who seems both innocent and really dirty--just by looking at her heritage. Oh, and Don Johnson had Melanie Griffith move into his home when he was legal to drink and she was 14. When your father was schlepping your mother when he was 21 and she was 14, what kind of moral authority do your parents have, exactly? You can't exactly punish your kid...for anything. Because, really, you both did worse.

That said, I've never actually read that crap. It's porn, ladies. It's porn. Just because it's in hardcover doesn't make it classy.

Hey, Republicans, get to work!

GET TO WORK!... GET TO WORK! President Obama has no control over whether Congress is open or closed, these being separate branches of government.

Republicans had their opportunity to make their mark on Obamacare in 2009, but they preferred obstruction--as they have obstructed for another three years. They took the issue to the Court, and the notoriously liberal Roberts Court literally said that it was Constitutional.

Is Obamacare good policy? Is it bad policy? Time will tell. So far the health exchanges are so terrible that people are rushing to sign-up for them. The Teabagger explanation is that most of those people are visiting the sites are politicians and their staff and journalists, which is a conspiracy theory that is actually beneath the Speaker. The more plausible explanation is that Americans are fearful that they need to sign-up for Obamacare ASAP or face some sever sanction such as kneecap forfeiture. The government, showing its usual foresight, didn't anticipate that everyone who didn't have health insurance would sign up for it all at once--rather there plan was probably for the 40 million Americans who don't have health insurance would evenly sign up over a period of several months, and the system was overwhelmed.

Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. At this point, Republicans are causing trouble for the sake of causing trouble, and are not exercising any principles whatsoever. This is not rebellion or patriotism but douchebaggery at is finest. It is such when done by liberals who burn the flag to show their contempt for the legislative process, and it it certainly the situation when done by Republicans whose master plan is to deny Obama a routine raising of the debt-ceiling to force a few billion in cuts and to hold off the inevitable for another year. In economic terms, this is a bad investment. In the words of Seth Meyers, Republicans have lost the game and have taken the ball into the woods.