Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 718
July 15, 2016
Cornel West endorses Green Party’s Jill Stein, calls Trump “neo-fascist catastrophe,” Clinton “neoliberal disaster”
(Credit: Albert H. Teich via Shutterstock)
“I am with her – the only progressive woman in the race,” said Cornel West.
“This November, we need change. Yet we are tied in a choice between Trump, who would be a neo-fascist catastrophe, and Clinton, a neo-liberal disaster. That’s why I am supporting Jill Stein.”
West, the renowned scholar and revolutionary, published an op-ed in The Guardian on Thursday in which he slammed the presidential candidates from both major parties, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and instead endorsed Jill Stein, the presidential candidate for the Green Party.
“Clinton policies of the 1990s generated inequality, mass incarceration, privatization of schools and Wall Street domination,” he wrote.
Hillary staunchly supported and lobbied for President Bill Clinton’s initiatives to axe welfare, pass tough-on-crime laws, pave the pathway for the privatization of prisons, implement the neoliberal trade deal NAFTA and deregulate Wall Street.
“There is also a sense that the Clinton policies helped produce the right-wing populism that we’re seeing now in the country,” West added. “And we think she’s going to come to the rescue? That’s not going to happen.”
Jill Stein has herself argued the same. “The terrible things that we expect from Donald Trump, we’ve actually already seen from Hillary Clinton,” she said in June. “Putting another Clinton in the White House is only going to make that right-wing extremism greater.”
In his op-ed, West echoed what he told Salon in an interview in May. “Just to tell the truth, Trump is a narcissistic neo-fascist in the making, and you just have to say that. That’s what it is,” he said, blasting the corporate media for fueling the rise of the GOP front-runner and describing him as the out-of-control Frankenstein’s monster who is “coming back to haunt you.”
“Hillary Clinton is a milquetoast neoliberal” who is pushing for “hawkish policies around the world; you just have to say that,” West added. He excoriated the capitalist system and the “big money” that rules society for leaving Americans with the choice between Clinton and Trump.
In August 2015, West endorsed Bernie Sanders, the longtime independent senator who ran an insurgent leftist campaign on the Democratic Party ticket.
Sanders subsequently appointed West, with four other prominent activists, to the Democratic Party’s platform drafting committee. The Sanders surrogates butted heads with the six members appointed by Clinton to the drafting committee.
Clinton surrogates voted against platform amendments proposed by Sanders appointees calling for opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a ban on fracking, a condemnation of the illegal Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories and more.
West condemned the Democratic platform for its failing on these basic left-wing issues.
“I have a deep love for my brother Bernie Sanders, but I disagree with him on Hillary Clinton,” West wrote in the op-ed.
This week Sanders’ supporters accused him of betraying his “political revolution” by not only endorsing Clinton for president, but also by actively campaigning for her and claiming she “will make an outstanding president.”
“I don’t think she would be an ‘outstanding president,'” West rejoined. “Her militarism makes the world a less safe place.”
Clinton, who voted and enthusiastically pushed for the invasion of Iraq, played leading roles in the NATO bombing of Libya, which plunged the country into chaos in which extremist groups including ISIS have flourished, and the U.S. policy in Syria.
The New York Times, which endorsed Clinton for president, acknowledged that she is more hawkish than Republican leaders, calling her “the last true hawk left in the race.”
West said the U.S. empire is in decline, and stressed that the “levels of wealth inequality and environmental degradation is grotesque.”
“Tell the truth about what is going on. Bear witness. Be willing to go to jail to fight for justice if need be,” West advised.
In his op-ed, West also criticized President Obama for failing to take more action against systemic racism and police brutality.
West said that, for seven years, he and other activists have pressured Obama not to ignore issues of poverty, police abuse and mass unemployment, but their calls have fallen on deaf ears.
“Obama and his cheerleaders should take responsibility for being so reluctant to engage with these issues,” West wrote.
“It’s not a question of interest group or constituencies. Unfortunately for so much of the Obama administration its been a question of ‘I’m not the president of black people, I’m the president of everyone.’ But this is a question of justice. It’s about being concerned about racism and police brutality.”
West noted that President Obama did not visit Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where hundreds were arrested protesting the brutal police killing of Alton Sterling; nor did he go to Minneapolis, during mass demonstrations against the fatal police shooting of Philando Castile.
“He flew over their heads to go to Dallas. You can’t do that. His fundamental concern was to speak to the police, that was his priority,” West wrote.
“When he references the Black Lives Matter movement, it’s to speak to the police. But the people who are struggling have a different perspective,” he added.
For years, West has been an outspoken critic of President Obama, condemning his drone program, which has killed hundreds of civilians, his centrist economic policies, his bailout of banks after the 2008 crash and his steadfast support for Israel, despite its harsh repression of the Palestinians.
“Unfortunately, Obama thrives on being in the middle. He has no backbone to fight for justice. He likes to be above the fray. But for those us who are in the fray, there is a different sensibility,” West wrote.
“You have to choose which side you’re on, and he doesn’t want to do that. Fundamentally, he’s not a love warrior. He’s a polished professional. Martin Luther King Jr, Adam Clayton Powell Jr and Ella Baker – they were warriors.”
West added, “Obama’s attitude is that of a neo-liberal, and they rarely have solidarity with poor and working people. Whatever solidarity he does offer is just lip-service to suffering but he never makes it a priority to end that suffering.”
July 14, 2016
Horror in France: At least 80 killed after truck loaded with weapons plows through crowd
Police officers and a soldier stand by the sealed off area of an attack after a truck drove on to the sidewalk and plowed through a crowd of revelers who'd gathered to watch the fireworks in the French resort city of Nice, southern France, Friday, July 15, 2016. A spokesman for France's Interior Ministry says there are likely to be "several dozen dead" after a truck drove into a crowd of revelers celebrating Bastille Day in the French city of Nice. (AP Photo/Ciaran Fahey) (Credit: AP)
A truck loaded with weapons and hand grenades drove onto a sidewalk for more than a mile, plowing through Bastille Day revelers who’d gathered to watch fireworks in the French resort city of Nice late Thursday. At least 80 people were killed before police killed the driver, authorities said.
Nice prosecutor Jean-Michel Pretre described a horrific scene, with bodies strewn along the roadway, and Sylvie Toffin, a press officer with the local prefecture, said the truck ran over people on a “long trip” down the sidewalk near Nice’s Palais de la Mediterranee, a building that fronts the beach.
Wassim Bouhlel, a Nice native who spoke to the AP nearby, said that he saw a truck drive into the crowd. “There was carnage on the road,” he said. “Bodies everywhere.” He said the driver emerged with a gun and started shooting.
France’s Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said 80 people were killed, including children, and 18 were in critical condition, and the Paris prosecutor’s office announced an investigation for “murder, attempted murder in an organized group linked to a terrorist enterprise.”
“We are in a war with terrorists who want to strike us at any price and in a very violent way,” Cazeneuve said.
The ranking politician of the Alpes-Maritime department that includes Nice said the truck plowed into the crowd over a distance of 2 kilometers (1.2 miles). Many of those on the ground were in shorts and other summer clothing.
Eric Ciotti said on BFM TV that police killed the driver “apparently after an exchange of gunfire.”
The president of the Provence Alpes Côte d’Azur regional council, which includes Nice, said the truck was loaded with arms and grenades. Christian Estrosi told BFM TV that “the driver fired on the crowd, according to the police who killed him.”
Images being broadcast across French media showed revelers running for their lives down Nice’s palm tree-lined Promenade des Anglais, the famous seaside boulevard named for the English aristocrats who proposed its construction in the 19th century.
Video footage showed men and women – one or two pushing strollers – racing to get away from the scenes. And, in what appeared to be evidence of a gun battle, photos showed a truck with at least half a dozen bullet holes punched through its windshield.
It was not immediately clear who would have been behind an attack, but France has recently seen a spate of dramatic assaults by jihadist groups, including the Islamic State group which straddles Iraq and Syria.
President Francois Hollande said in a televised statement that all of France was under an “Islamist terrorist threat” and extended by three months a state of emergency that has been in place since the November attacks that killed 130 in Paris was to end July 26. The decision needs parliamentary approval.
“The terrorist character (of the attack) cannot be denied,” he said.
Hollande said he was calling a defense council meeting Friday that brings together defense, interior and other key ministers, then heading to Nice. He listed several measures to bolster security in France after two waves of attacks last year that killed 147 people. Besides continuation of the state of emergency and the Sentinel operation with 10,000 soldiers on patrol, he said he was calling up “operational reserves,” those who have served in the past and will be brought in to help police, particularly at French borders.
President Barack Obama condemned what he said “appears to be a horrific terrorist attack.”
European Council president Donald Tusk said it was a “tragic paradox” that the victims of the attack in Nice were celebrating “liberty, equality and fraternity” – France’s motto – on the country’s national day.
Writing online, Nice Matin journalist Damien Allemand who was at the waterside said the fireworks display had finished and the crowd had got up to leave when they heard a noise and cries.
“A fraction of a second later, an enormous white truck came along at a crazy speed, turning the wheel to mow down the maximum number of people,” he said.
“I saw bodies flying like bowling pins along its route. Heard noises, cries that I will never forget.”
Graphic footage showed a scene of horror up and down the Promenade, with broken bodies splayed out on the asphalt, some of them piled near one another, others bleeding out onto the roadway or twisted into unnatural shapes.
“Help my mother, please!” one person yells out amid a cacophony of screaming and crying. A pink girl’s bicycle is briefly seen overturned by the side of the road.
The origin and authenticity of the footage could not immediately be verified.
Kayla Repan, of Boca Raton, Florida, was among the hundreds gathered on the promenade to watch fireworks.
“The whole city was running. I got extremely frightened and ran away from the promenade,” she said. “It was chaos.”
Donald Trump says ‘this is war’ after attack in Nice, France
Donald Trump (Credit: Reuters/Jim Bourg)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump says in the aftermath of a deadly truck attack in France that if he’s elected president he would ask Congress for a declaration of war on the Islamic State.
In an interview with Fox News Channel’s “The O’Reilly Factor,” Trump says, “This is war.” He spoke after a truck carrying weapons and hand grenades drove onto a sidewalk in Nice, France, and plowed through people celebrating Bastille Day, killing at least 77 people.
Trump says to fight the Islamic State, which he calls a “cancer,” NATO should be used “for a purpose.”
It was not immediately clear Thursday night who was behind the attack.
In a separate interview on Fox, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton says the U.S. needs to “stand strongly” with France and strengthen our alliances, including with NATO, to ferret out terrorism and prevent future attacks. Clinton says she would intensify efforts to put together a more effective coalition against terrorism.
Norman Lear sits down with Salon: “Trump is the middle finger of the American right hand”
Archie Bunker; Norman Lear; Donald Trump (Credit: AP/CBS/Matt Sayles/David Zalubowski/Photo montage by Salon)
Norman Lear tells the mother of all Jewish-mother anecdotes, and it bears repeating in print even though it’s certainly funnier in person. When the Television Hall of Fame was first established in 1980, the creator of “All in the Family” and “Maude” and “The Jeffersons” and “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman” was inducted alongside an all-star cast of small-screen luminaries, including Lucille Ball, Milton Berle and Edward R. Murrow. Lear called his elderly mother to tell her of this honor, and there was a long silence at the other end of the line. “Well,” she finally said, “if they want to do that, who am I to say?”
Lear, who will turn 94 later this month — “If I make it that far,” he would surely add — tells great stories. But the remarkable thing about meeting the living legend who revolutionized television comedy is not that he talks but that he listens. During our hour-long conversation in a noisy restaurant in lower Manhattan, Lear arrived about an observation about the central role of Jewish humor in American comedy that he said he’d never had before. He asked questions about my family and my background and guessed my age precisely (which was a little terrifying). He walks slowly and is somewhat hard of hearing, and has none of the veneer of artificial youth you often find in Hollywood, but seems more engaged with other people and the world than many people three decades younger.
There’s a scene in Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady’s richly entertaining documentary “Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You” where we see Lear, backstage at “Good Morning America,” shoveling crumbs of his snack under the green-room table with his foot. Watching the film a second time, I wondered what it was doing there. Then I read through the transcript of this interview and concluded that was the nine-year-old boy at work, the one Lear says is always present in him — a boy who is careful and who notices the details, who addresses serious issues with humor and sees the universality of human foibles.
Even if you’re too young to have grown up with Archie and Edith Bunker or George and Weezy Jefferson or the other flawed American families in Lear’s shows, you still live in the media universe he made possible. “All in the Family” was the first must-see sitcom, whose weekly ideological clashes between Archie the right-wing bigot (played with enormous sensitivity by Carroll O’Connor) and his son-in-law Mike (Rob Reiner) distilled the cultural divide of the Nixon years. If “Sanford and Son” and “Good Times” and “The Jeffersons” were not quite the first sitcoms to feature African-Americans, they sought to do so with far more specificity and complexity than ever before. Bea Arthur’s title character in “Maude,” most famously, chose to have an abortion in a 1972 episode, two months before the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision.
Lear’s shows, which galvanized public opinion and attracted huge audiences (mostly on CBS, then identified as a liberal-leaning network), would not quite be possible now, in an age of niche marketing and narrowcasting when everyone consumes media within his or her self-constructed sphere. An abortion storyline featuring the main character on a major broadcast network show is still infrequent enough to cause a stir, and perhaps no network, period, would be OK with a white showrunner at the helm of several different series about black families.
But as comes through clearly in Ewing and Grady’s subtle, rewarding and necessary film (they are the Oscar-nominated documentary duo behind “Jesus Camp” and “Detropia”), all the cultural divisions that Lear’s shows brought to the fore in the 1970s — on race and gender and sexuality and national identity — remain with us today, perhaps even more strongly. As the film’s title suggests, Lear has always been guided by his faith in communication and human commonality, qualities that seem in short supply at the moment.
Everyone asks Lear about Archie Bunker and Donald Trump, and I did too. He sees the relationship, of course, but insists that Archie, once alone with his own thoughts and his own conscience, wouldn’t have it in him to vote for Trump. We have to hope he’s right.
Norman, my mother is exactly your age, so I promise not to show you any respect! [Laughter.] Seriously, though — although she’s physically frail she has that thing you have, that George Clooney talks about in the movie: an ability not to be bored by life and not to be bored by other people. What is it about so many people your age, or even younger, that makes them shut down?
I see them shutting down at 60. I can’t believe how old some people are at 60. I don’t know what it is. I think a lot has to do with the nature of the culture. We don’t honor the end of life at all. I don’t mean the actual end, I mean everything that leads to the end. We deal with the jokes about the elderly, the clumsiness, the sickness, but we don’t deal with the fact that the growing doesn’t stop, and that is the absolute truth. I’ve had insights in the last few weeks that I could have had at 30 or 60 or 90, but I happened to have them late. Now I’m upset with myself for using the word “late,” because I don’t think late exists. I’ve never said that before. I’m thinking about it, but that’s a good attitude. Late doesn’t exist.
It must be strange to look at the country’s culture right now. What strikes me most about what just happened in Dallas, for example, is how divided the response is, and how everyone in the country views it through their different individual prisms. That’s almost exactly what “All in the Family” was about, isn’t it?
Exactly. Nothing has changed in human nature. It isn’t so surprising that what you said may be true. Nothing seems to have changed. What’s surprising is that we’re surprised about who we are as human beings. And we don’t talk enough about our commonality.
Recently I went on a visit to Berlin with my wife. As we were circling to land, I remembered the last time I did that, when I was 20 or 21 years old and we were dropping bombs. I was in a B-17 and we were bombing Berlin. I was a radio operator and gunner, so I was closer to the bomb bay. I was the crew member who looked over to see the bomb bay doors open and the bombs drop, and I was the one to notify the pilot that the last bomb had left the bay and he could close the door.
So I sat there, on 36 missions or so, watching dozens or hundreds of bombs dropping from all the planes around us and thinking, if one of them misses the target, if one hits a farmhouse and kills a family, “Fuck ‘em.” I don’t know whether you can write that. My teeth grew clenched. I remember the feeling so clearly.
I also remember, on the way home, thinking that if anybody had asked me to sign a paper saying that I would mean forever that I didn’t give a damn if the bomb actually hit a family sitting around the dinner table, that I would never, ever sign such a paper. I had to pray, and I did, that I wasn’t that person. But thank god I was never tested. If I can have that feeling for even an instant, it makes me want to understand the mind and heart and soul of the person who would sign that paper, which is what we’re seeing the equivalent of with the murders we’re seeing around the country today. We’ve got to try to understand what is common in our human nature.
What also struck me is that “All in the Family” was about people being able to talk to each other, even when they were imperfect people and the conversation was angry and they didn’t agree. The relationship between Archie and his son-in-law Mike was so much the center of that show. They talked all the time, even if a lot of it was yelling and insults. My sense was that over the years the show was on the air they came to a kind of common understanding, and affection, without agreeing about anything.
They came there, for sure. Because in one episode, Mike and Gloria are moving to California and they’re saying goodbye. And I remember right now, I’m living it right now because I see it so clearly, the moment that Archie and Mike are saying goodbye to each other. And Mike, because he’s more open, was able, with great difficulty, to finally say, “I love you, Archie,” and throw himself into Archie’s arms. And Archie, over Michael’s back, you saw his hand having difficulty forming the clutch. [Laughter.] He was in his arms, but he couldn’t quite … [makes hugging gesture in the air]. I mean, it was just the most wonderful moment. Without saying the words, he emotionally said, “I love you.”
I remember that scene. It was amazing. But so much of that show was amazing. I really appreciate what you said in the movie about Carroll O’Connor. I met him twice, I think. My dad ran a program in Celtic studies at U.C. Berkeley and O’Connor was very interested and gave the program some money. He was such a gentle and sensitive guy, and I remember being amazed that he was nothing like Archie Bunker. But what he did with that character was so amazing, it was like every week he played out a miniature Eugene O’Neill play, in the context of a television sitcom.
Well, I talked in the film about how I wrote the pages for Archie and I had them for months before I met Carroll O’Connor. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but I certainly wasn’t looking for him. It doesn’t mean I was seeking to avoid him, it means I had no fucking idea. I just knew I had a character on paper. It was a miracle, this performer coming in and inhabiting those words, putting them on like a well-fitting suit. It was a miracle. I feel that way about performers generally, when an actor slips in and picks up a role.
You’ve mentioned the fact that Archie Bunker was partly inspired by your own father, but obviously Carroll O’Connor came from a different background than you did. Is that why the character is so nonspecific, so non-ethnic. I mean, he lives in Queens but he’s not Catholic or Jewish or Irish or Italian or anything else you can identify. If he’s a working-class white Anglo, he’s like the only one in New York City!
It was my decision. The network, other writers, everybody said, “The guy’s Irish.” I mean, you look at O’Connor, and his face. I said, “I don’t want to nail the Irish or the Catholics or any other particular faith with his bigotry.” I preferred just to leave it alone and let the audience do it. My father used to use the expression “pig Irish.” Nobody ever said to me he’s pig Irish. He was Archie Bunker. That’s amazing, even now, as I hear myself say this. The truth is that if the character is well played, the audience believes what the audience is led to, and he was so brilliant.
If your shows were about people talking to each other, what comes through in the film is that you were always open to it yourself. There’s that amazing story about the way you started doing “The Jeffersons,” after a couple of African-American radicals people kind of burst into your office to tell you that “Good Times” was racist or whatever. That’s a true story?
Black Panthers, yep. Their big complaint about “Good Times” was, “Why did the only black head of a family have to take three jobs to earn a living? There are black families that are doing a lot better.” Well, we were gonna do “The Jeffersons” anyway. I don’t think we had the notion of “They’re movin’ on up,” but the Panthers helped us think that.
The thing is, you didn’t just slam the door and call security and forget about it. You actually listened to what they had to say. Even at that point, as established as you were in the industry, you were open to the idea that somebody from the outside world, from a very different perspective, had feedback that could be useful to you.
There’s an episode of “All In The Family” that answers that. Archie feels threatened because Gloria has been followed home from a supermarket by a package carrier, a kid who may be mentally disabled or something. When the kid is found he has his fist clenched, which assures Archie that he’s right, the kid is threatening. But the fist is clenched over a piece of paper the kid’s mother had given him and told him never to lose. Gloria causes him to open his hand and Archie reads the piece of paper and he says, “Each man is my superior, in that I may learn from him.” I don’t remember who said that, but I heard it as a young man. I never doubted it for a second.
I feel that we are in danger of losing that perspective. When you look at what the culture is like now, with everybody locked into their own TV channels and their portable devices. It’s like the technology that was supposed to connect us to other people also renders us more alone.
What I hear all the time, all the time, is, “I saw this with my father, I saw this with my family, we all watched it together,” some version of that. Now everybody’s got their own intimate place somewhere in the house. I don’t know. I sometimes think it’s gonna change the physical nature of humanity, what the human being is like on Planet Earth 200 years from now. What are we gonna be like?
You get a lot of credit for the way that you changed TV in terms of the issues that were addressed, the commitment to social realism and to addressing serious topics through comedy. But I don’t know if people notice the way you changed television formally. To me, that’s just as important. “All In The Family” and “Maude” and “The Jeffersons” were one side of the equation, but I think the absurdism and the media satire at work in shows like “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman” or “Fernwood 2 Night” had a huge influence on comedy. And, yes — I watched those with my dad! I can remember sitting in his apartment in suburban California watching “Fernwood 2 Night” and thinking: This isn’t really on television, is it?
Well, I love the fact that “Mary Hartman,” what it was about, you could see from the first show to the last. What it was about was the effect of the 24/7 media on the average American household. During the opening show, she’s standing with that can [of floor polish]: She does see waxy yellow buildup, but the can says it can’t be. Who are you gonna believe? These people who have been in business for 50 years, or your own eyes? Near the end, close to the last show, she loses her mind over the David Susskind. These media talking heads drive her out of her fucking mind, and it’s one of the greatest performances I can remember. In the last episode, she’s sitting there with a bunch of other people who have something wrong with them, basically they’re all loony. Somebody brings in a television set and Mary looks up at the nurse and says, “Is that what I think it is?” The nurse says, “Yes, Mary.” She says, “Really? That’s …” “Yes, Mary.” “I can’t believe…” Now others are crowding around and looking. “I can’t believe that I, Mary Hartman, am now part of the Nielsen family.” That was the end. So it was on target from the beginning to the end. I love that.
When you look at what television comedy turned into in the following decades, from “Seinfeld” to “Curb Your Enthusiasm” to “Modern Family” to “Girls,” it feels like the Norman Lear influence is everywhere.
What I relate to most closely, believe it or not, is “South Park.” I think those guys are brilliant. “The Book of Mormon” is the greatest gift to sanity I know in our culture. But I love what “The Carmichael Show” is doing, and “Black-ish.” They’re terrific shows.
I imagine pretty much everybody asks you about the analogy between Archie Bunker and —
Donald Trump. [Laughter.]
Yeah, you knew where I was going with that. It’s an inevitable comparison. I also kind of feel like it’s too simple.
I think you’re right.
Would Archie vote for Donald Trump?
I don’t think so at all. I think it could be a really good episode. Oh my God, it would make a really great episode. Him arguing with Mike and defending Donald Trump — I would love to do that. Because there isn’t much by way of leadership across the nation that Trump doesn’t represent as the asshole he is. They’re not all a bunch of assholes. But everything he reflects is what corporate America reflects.
And then, you’d actually see Archie go to vote. And in the end, he wouldn’t be able to do it. I really don’t think he would.
I think of Donald Trump as the middle finger of the American right hand, and they are saying, “This is the kind of leadership you give us everywhere? Corporate America, political America, fuck you.” And he represents that middle finger.
I think that’s right. Another way that it’s too simple is that Archie obviously held bigoted views, but you never tried to reduce him as a person to the bigoted views that he held. His prejudices ultimately didn’t define him. He was more, as a person, than just somebody who hated blacks or hated gay people or whatever he hated.
I wanted it to be as clear as we could make it without spelling it out. He was just afraid. From the song on, he was just afraid of progress. “Gee, our old LaSalle ran great! Those were the days.”
I sometimes worry that people who live in L.A. or New York in nice neighborhoods look at the Donald Trump voters and think that they’re just being motivated by racism or hatred of Muslims or whatever. That is part of it, but as with Archie, it’s not really fair to boil it down to just that.
If you don’t like Hillary — and there’s lots of reasons not to like Hillary — you’ve got to be saying, “What are they giving us?” Which I feel 90 percent of the time anyway, because for a populace or a form of government that depends on an informed citizenry, all we’ve got is people screaming and yelling at each other in bumper sticker-style on the tube, with no real context. It’s not helping us understand the context in which these things are happening, whatever things we’re talking about. I don’t think the American people get a great deal from their leaders, that’s for sure.
Where do you think this election is heading? I mean, all the numbers would suggest that Hillary has an advantage. But it’s kind of hard not to fear the worst, when you consider everything that has already happened.
I don’t want to wake up the morning I’m without hope. I don’t want to know that morning, so I think it’s all gonna turn out OK. But that mustn’t make us complacent. But I don’t think there are enough Democratic leaders who are telling it like it is, like they think it is. They’re not calling Trump the absolute fucking fool that we know him to be.
In your shows you really tried to present people who were very different from you, whether that meant Archie or George Jefferson or the “Good Times” family, without making them simplistic, one-note characters the way most TV writers did.
I’m sure I did. We always asked for help. For the abortion episode on “Maude,” we had all the help we could get from the philosophy departments at USC and UCLA. When Edith was nearly raped on “All in the Family,” we actually formed a relationship with the Santa Monica Rape Treatment Center. They were helping us, but we put them on the map. We didn’t think we were doing it, but it happened that way and they became the leading rape treatment center around the country. Others wanted to do what they were doing. I’ve always used outside consultants to help assure that we understood the issues and that we were right on the facts.
In the film you talk about telling the cast of “Good Times” that you felt you could identify with the core issues on that show because you were a father, a son, a brother, a nephew and all of that, and that there was a common thread to that. We live in an era of much greater sensitivity today, but you might have someone come back at you and say, “Well, no — you’re a white, heterosexual Jewish male and you can’t possibly understand the experience of this XYZ other person.” Which might be a useful perspective, but you can’t make art that way, right? Whatever you make of Shakespeare’s portrayals of Othello or Shylock, they’re not one-dimensional. They’re pretty complicated.
And they are as he saw them. That’s where the buck stops. That’s what I said to Esther [Rolle] and John [Amos] about the nature of stories: “As far as the blackness, the gestalt, you take care of 100 percent of that. But where we’re making decisions about fathers, sons, mothers and daughters, I’m a family member in all the ways that you, John, are a family member. And the buck has to stop with me, whether you’re black or not.” So we made a show about guys hitting on Thelma, who was 16 at the time and beautiful. Which they didn’t want to do, they didn’t want to get into that sex area with a young girl. I understood the way they were caring, but I insisted that they understand the way I was caring as a producer who wanted to do some good work.
The story about World War II that you told me a few minutes ago is a striking one. In the movie you say that you volunteered for the Air Force because you wanted to be known as a “Jew who served.” Why was that important and what did that mean to you?
Because I felt that despite … If I didn’t have civics class in school, I don’t know what would have happened. You saw the film, so you know what Father Coughlin was saying. [The Rev. Charles Coughlin was a prominent Catholic priest and radio host with rabid anti-Semitic views.] The more I think about the war, the more I believe I was sustained by knowing that my country said I mattered as much as any Christian, and I had rights and opportunities under the law. My government had assured me I was equal.
I think in subsequent years, when I thought more about what I meant [in the film] about slipping across 125th Street and looking at black families, I related to them in that way and understood that they, too, were ostensibly intended to be sustained by the government and the rule of law. I think that was an enormous subtext. That nine-year-old lived in me who was always aware that he was Jewish and that a lot of people thought about that and noticed it. My friend Andrew Heiskell, who was the long-time chairman of Time Inc. and one of the tallest guys I knew, one of the biggest guys I knew, and one of the loves of my life in business and politics — and a Republican early on — I always talked about him as the biggest, tallest goy I knew. Goy is Yiddish for non-Jew.
I know the word!
That nine-year-old boy, who will always be there, is sustained more by the goy who appreciates me, respects me, loves me, than by another Jew. I can’t get rid of that, I just can’t get rid of that. I thought about that in the very first debate between Obama and Mitt Romney [in 2012], when there was this long moment where Obama was looking down and Romney was in his ear, was kind of letting him have it. I thought: The man is giving it to the boy. And then I wondered from that moment on if there wasn’t a nine-year-old kid in Barack Obama, too, that might have given more credit to the white guy who respected him enormously than another black guy.
That’s so interesting. Especially when you think about the fact that Jewish humor — I guess I’ll just come out and say this — Jewish humor is so central to the American comedy tradition. Which is striking, because we’re talking about two-and-a-half percent of the population. Is that about a group of people who were persecuted for generations, to some extent seeking approbation and approval from the larger society?
This conversation brought us to that. And me, for the first time, to that question. And I think that’s absolutely right. I’m so pleased to have been brought there. It’s commonsensical, isn’t it?
I guess so. Did we just solve a cultural riddle here? A minority group using the tools it has available …
To say what needs to be said. Which we are not strong enough or brave enough or maybe even smart enough to say straightforwardly. So we put a curb on it.
My stepdad, who was a Jewish World War II veteran, like yourself — he was a Jew and a Communist and a decorated Marine Corps combat veteran, which could really blow people’s minds. He was definitely driven by his sense that this country didn’t want him and didn’t trust him on many levels, so he was going to prove that he was a true American.
There you have it.
You have spent so much time trying to raise people’s consciousness and get them to talk to each other, when you were making TV shows and when you were working on political causes. Looking around now, at the world we have, I have to ask: Was it worth it? Did it work?
It worked for me.
I guess that’s all you can ask.
It worked for me. When I hear people tell me how much they laughed with their dad, how much they laughed with their parents, and they don’t have that experience now. This is a memory that has kind of landed in my life in recent years and I love it. “We laughed as a family.” Comedy has a way of being a — when you’re getting a transfusion? It’s like an IV. You’re laughing and learning, laughing and hearing, laughing and listening to something you may or may not agree with. But you take it in laughter.
Is it harder to get people to listen without the laughter? Is that what you’ve concluded?
Well, they wouldn’t be laughing if they didn’t hear it. It’s just another way of assuring us that they’re listening.
”Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You” is now playing in New York and Los Angeles. It opens July 22 in Washington, July 29 in Boston, Aug. 5 in Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia and San Francisco, and Aug. 12 in Minneapolis and Columbus, Ohio, with more cities and home video to follow.
Dance into the fire: A close look at Duran Duran’s low-key red-hot tour of the summer
Duran Duran (Credit: AP/Owen Sweeney)
By now, the summer touring season is in full swing. Although superstars such as Taylor Swift and Katy Perry are taking the season off, there’s no shortage of in-demand blockbuster treks—to name a few, Adele, Beyoncé, Guns n’ Roses, Radiohead, Paul McCartney and (starting in August) Kanye West—and the usual slate of classic rock and country package deals, amphitheater shows, stadium tours and outdoor festivals. Still, the hottest tour of the summer is actually more low-key than any of these outings: Duran Duran with opening act Chic featuring Nile Rodgers.
From a musical level, the pairing is a no-brainer. Duran Duran has collaborated with Rodgers off and on since the early ’80s, and this partnership has led to No. 1 hits (“The Reflex”), fan favorites (1986’s funky strut “Notorious”) and genre-busting singles (2015’s “Pressure Off”). Both have also redefined dance music, mainly by scribbling outside of the lines: Rather than going by trends or formula, Duran Duran and Rodgers—the latter both with Chic and in his own production and writing work—rely on feel, instinct and groove to create indelible tunes.
Yet from a career standpoint, both Duran Duran and Rodgers know what it’s like to be an underdog. Although chart success has never eluded either, they’ve had to navigate and overcome negative stereotypes and shifting trends. Chic’s association with disco became detrimental in the wake of the “Disco Sucks!” movement of 1979. “It happened and then we had one of the biggest records of our career with Diana Ross! [1980’s ‘Diana’],” Rodgers told The Guardian in 2014. “But by that time Chic was toxic. Even my friends were bad-mouthing us. It was really not a nice period.” In fact, he credits David Bowie with helping salvage his career. “At the time in my life that I was persona non grata, when no one would work with me because of ‘Disco Sucks,’ this guy, who was considered one of the great, innovative rockers, picked a disco guy, who nobody wanted to work with, to collaborate with,” Rodgers told Yahoo! in January after Bowie passed away. “And we wound up making the biggest record of his career, ‘Let’s Dance.'”
Duran Duran, meanwhile, was considered a boy band—which meant the group wasn’t taken seriously from a musical standpoint—and weathered lineup changes that disrupted the creative process. By Y2K, they were at a low point, playing smaller venues and floundering after albums such as 2000’s “Pop Trash” didn’t take off commercially. Still, Duran Duran’s fortunes turned around after an early-’00s reunion of the original quintet: In fact, last year’s “Paper Gods” LP debuted at No. 10 on the album charts, the band’s best performance since 1993’s self-titled effort.
Yet what’s great about “Paper Gods” is its commitment to progress. Duran Duran isn’t trying to rewrite “Rio” or “Planet Earth”; instead, the album focuses on modern-sounding synthpop with an ear to futuristic sounds, beats and textures. Rodgers’ body of work as well reflects his constant forward motion. His Daft Punk and Pharrell collaboration/smash “Get Lucky” was both retro and out of this world, while he recently released a song with country star Keith Urban and pop staple Pitbull, and just had a No. 1 on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart with the Alex Newell and DJ Cassidy collaboration “Kill The Lights.” If anything, Rodgers is busier and more creative than ever—a state he’s said came about after his very-public (and successful) battle with cancer.
As a result of these personal and career-based ebbs and flows, neither act takes music for granted—a mindset which translates to an exuberant concert experience. On a recent Monday night at the DTE Energy Music Theatre outdoor amphitheater outside of Detroit, the two groups threw what felt more like a riotous Saturday night dance party.
In a quirk of timing, Chic featuring Nile Rodgers—which had a horn section, keyboardists and powerful vocalists as well as the usual band instrumentation—strolled onstage when it was still daylight. No matter: The nightclub vibe erupted immediately with the crisp disco triptych of “Everybody Dance,” “Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah Yowsah Yowsah)” and “I Want Your Love.” A medley of Diana Ross and Sister Sledge tunes let Rodgers demonstrate the breadth and depth of Chic’s songwriting and production; this led to an uplifting, cathartic take on “Get Lucky” and an emotional performance of Bowie’s “Let’s Dance”—whose icy percolations still sound beamed in from a distant, funky planet. After that, the energy just kept building: By the end of the set and the one-two punch of “Le Freak” and “Good Times,” the entire audience was up and dancing—sweaty and grinning, absorbing Chic’s good vibes, and primed for the rest of the show.
Duran Duran delivered too, of course, with a set drawing from “Paper Gods”—the soulful electro title track and the astronaut-floating-in-space atmosphere of “What Are The Chances”—and their vast catalog. (They also paid tribute to Bowie with a touching “Space Oddity” segue—appropriately—during the alienated “Planet Earth.”) This set had just as much infectious energy as Rodgers’ opening slot did, with highlights including a fist-pumping, guitar-heavy “The Wild Boys”; the Bond theme-sophistication of “A View To A Kill”; a stunning “Ordinary World”; and the Roxy Music-goes-glam “Girls On Film.” In a nod to die-hards, Duran Duran also dug deep into their career and dusted off a few chestnuts: the marbled funk of “I Don’t Want Your Love” and an industrial-punky cover of Melle Mel’s hip-hop classic “White Lines (Don’t Do It).”
Of course, Rodgers’ presence on the tour meant he joined Duran Duran mid-set for “Notorious” and “Pressure Off.” Hearing the former song with Rodgers adding his familiar, effortless guitar strokes was an added treat for fans and, not so secretly, the band. Vocalist Simon Le Bon—who was in a cheeky mood all night—even introduced his long-time pal by enthusing about his talents and then noted his majestic presence by noting, “If he were British he would be Sir Nile Rodgers. Tonight, he’s Sir Nile of Rodgers!” The affection was mutual and universal, going by the gigantic grins on the faces of everyone onstage during this particular interlude.
Above all, the positive energy circulating around the venue the entire night lingered well after the show ended. Moms brought their kids to see what the fuss was all about; married couples were moving and grooving together; and groups of old friends were dancing together like they were 15 again. Nobody was being a jerk or rude; everyone was simply enjoying the music. (As any concert-goer will note, that’s not always the case.) Being able to engender this kind of goodwill goes a long way to explain the career longevity and renaissance of both Duran Duran and Nile Rodgers, however. Their music is (and always has been) fearless and celebratory—exuding the kind of sincere joy that resonates and endures simply because it comes from the heart.
“Stick to sports” is no longer an option: What it means for NBA stars to take a stand for Black Lives Matter
Carmelo Anthony, from left, Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade and LeBron James speak on stage at the ESPY Awards, July 13, 2016. (Credit: AP/Chris Pizzello)
Last night, four black men spoke candidly on national television about race and police violence in America. It’s encouraging, if long overdue, that these conversations are now happening in the plain light of day; law enforcement has been killing African-Americans with relative impunity for decades but over the last few weeks, there’s been such a spike in (white) awareness that even Newt Gingrich has issued a statement just this side of woke.
But what made Thursday’s statement so remarkable was that it wasn’t pundits or talking heads sounding off. And the forum wasn’t a mainstream news program. Instead, it was LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul—four of the NBA’s most prominent players—taking the stage to open the ESPYs, ESPN’s annual awards show. Clad in black suits, these perennial All-Stars took a stand against racial profiling and extrajudicial murder before issuing a challenge to themselves and fellow athletes. As James put it, “we can all do better.”
Athletes rarely, if ever, talk like this. They mince words and dance around issues; when they do speak out, it’s generally in broad strokes. And you can hardly blame them for their reticence. When an athlete takes a stand on a divisive issue, he’s often dismissively told to “stick to sports.” More cynically, his personal brand could take a severe hit. For them addressing issues is optional; when they decide to do so, it’s a calculated decision. For fans with a political conscience, we’ll take it where we can get it. After all, these are celebrities, not experts. They never asked for this platform.
What we heard from James, Wade, Anthony and Paul, though, was something else altogether: Athletes can no longer afford silence. It’s not just a matter of responsibility. We’ve reached a point where the plague of police violence represents an existential threat to people of color in this country. As black men, these four players know they are affected no matter how wealthy or removed from daily life they may be. They don’t have the luxury of sitting back and weighing their actions or, to paraphrase Wade, present themselves as well-intention without significant follow-through. This time, it’s personal.
To be fair, this group—a tight-knit group of friends who routinely flex their power around the league—haven’t exactly ignored current events. Over the past few years, all have expressed their frustration and concern, albeit in relatively subtle ways. Lately, Anthony has been particularly vocal, with a long Instagram post and Guardian op-ed that addressed the topic head-on. But by presenting a unified front at the ESPYs, they embraced their role as activists. In calling for other athletes to follow suit, they weren’t laying a guilt trip on anyone. They were sending a clear message: Whether we like it or not, this is our fight.
It’s telling that it was four basketball players on that stage. While many people would love to keep politics out of sports—or pretend that that the internal politics of sports aren’t shaped by race, class, gender, and labor—with the NBA, the visibility of race is unavoidable. Football players are invisible, cogs in a system who play with their faces hidden. Baseball has plenty of issues but not that many African-Americans. The NBA, on the other hand, is a predominantly black league where a relatively small number of athletes play a game that both exposes them almost completely and often encourages self-expression. Professional basketball is practically set up to generate fame and visibility, generating exactly the kind of figure expected to have an opinion about race-related matters. James, Anthony, Wade, and Paul may have presented their statement as necessary, but it was still brave. By taking the stage as a group, these four NBA players, in effect, acknowledged that their sport is the standard-bearer when it comes to athletes refusing to “stick to sports.”
We should acknowledge also that their inspiration could very well have come from outside of their sport. The legacy of Muhammad Ali cast a long shadow over the ESPYs; while Paul presented a long list of other activist-athletes, Ali’s passing threw into sharp relief not only how little we usually get from today’s athletes but also the degree to which we’ve lowered our expectations. Whether or not they’re obligated to speak is beside the point; until last night, any gesture whatsoever was applauded. Despite their near-universal respect for Ali, today’s athletes haven’t exactly followed in his footsteps.
By admitting that they simply haven’t done enough, James and his peers have raised the bar. The four may have acted because they themselves feel threatened. But in so explicitly doing so—and in laying out such a convincing case for athletes engaging with the issues of our day—they strongly implied that going forward, they have no interest in playing it safe. This has the potential to be a breakthrough moment for sports, not only in calling for real action but also in transforming the “should” of athlete activism from an obligation to a responsibility. While still an imperative, it’s one that they can fully embrace, rather than having it imposed upon them.
There were certainly a few concessions made, or at least attempts to broaden the topic. Paul emphasized the need for a positive relationship with the police. Elsewhere, there were nods to the Dallas shooting and black-on-black crime. But the optics of that night were simply unavoidable: The statement was almost immediately labeled “a Black Lives Matter speech” by people on both side of the issue (that this is even an “issue” with “sides” is itself repugnant); its polarizing reception and proliferation across social media were an indication of just how powerful it was to hear athletes talk this way.
After the four were finished, news leaked out that ESPN never planned for this to happen; the athletes themselves had approached the network with the idea. Kudos to them for being game, I suppose, but at the same time, they couldn’t exactly say no; at a time when corporate entities are voicing support for BLM, it would have been a public relations disaster if a network refusal became public knowledge. At the same time, though, ESPN can’t afford to refuse LeBron James. He’s too important, too influential, for a media property that huge (or for that matter, a professional league that relies so heavily on him) to get on his bad side.
Athletes speaking out may still be taking a risk. But last night taught us a lot about the possibility of them doing so on their own terms, at the times they deem appropriate. On every level, it was an exercise in autonomy. LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Paul may have felt like they had no choice. They made a plan and, just as Wade insisted others do, made sure it was realized. Hopefully, athletes—or at least those at the top of their respective sports—no longer feel like they need permission to voice opinions. And if they’re the ones who take the initiative, this responsibility becomes something else altogether. It becomes a way of life.
7 things you need to know about Mike Pence, Trump’s reported VP pick
Mike Pence (Credit: Reuters/John Sommers II)
On Thursday, The Washington Post reported that presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump would be tapping Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as his vice president.
Stephen Colbert said it best on his “Late Show” Wednesday night: “Who the hell knows anything about Mike Pence?”
The truth is, outside Indiana, not too many people have even heard of the guy. So here’s a primer:
1. He’s a Tea Partier
Pence is one of two — along with Kentucky’s Matt Bevin — sitting governors who are avowed members of the Tea Party Caucus.
2. He wasn’t always a Republican
According to a USA Today report, Pence — raised by Democrats — veered right as an undergrad, inspired by then-President Ronald Reagan’s “brand of conservatism and his views on limited government.”
3. He was, for a time, a radio personality
Pence hosted a drive-time talk show in the ’90s, likening himself to “Rush Limbaugh on decaf.”
4. He’s got the Koch connection
Pence was a potential contender in 2016 because of his close connection with the Koch Brothers’ Americans for Prosperity Super PAC.
“A number of Pence’s former staffers from his days in Congress have assumed major roles in the brothers’ corporate and political spheres,” Politico reported in 2014. “And Americans for Prosperity … has been holding up Pence’s work in Indiana as emblematic of a conservative reform agenda they’re trying to take nationwide.”
5. He endorses a strong Church and State connection
Pence is thoroughly opposed to the separation of church and state, as indicated by his 0% (the highest level of opposition) rating from watchdog group Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
6. He’s anti-abortion
As Politico reported in 2011, then-Congressman Pence, in three consecutive sessions, introduced legislation to totally defund Planned Parenthood.
“If Planned Parenthood wants to be involved in providing counseling services and HIV testing, they ought not be in the business of providing abortions,” Pence said. “As long as they aspire to do that, I’ll be after them.”
All three pieces of legislation excluded cases of rape, incest, or danger to the mother.
7. He couldn’t be more aligned with Trump on immigration
In 2006, Pence and Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison proposed a visa program to allow ejected illegal immigrants from Mexico, Canada, and most of Central America to apply for government-approved work visas after having undergone criminal background checks and health screenings.
The two-year Secure Authorized Foreign Employee (SAFE) visa, as it was called, would have allowed participants to renew up to five times, for a total of 12 years.
As governor in 2014, Pence tagged onto a multi-state lawsuit filed against President Obama for a series of executive actions pertaining to illegal immigration and amnesty for families.
And three days after the 2015 ISIS-credited Paris attacks, Pence joined as many as 30 U.S. governors in banning Syrian resettlement in his state. The ACLU took Pence to court, where Federal Judge Tanya Walton Pratt ruled his ban unconstitutional, adding that it “clearly discriminates against Syrian refugees based on their national origin.”
However, Pence on Twitter in December implicitly criticized Trump’s proposed Muslim ban, calling it “offensive and unconstitutional”:
Calls to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. are offensive and unconstitutional.
— Governor Mike Pence (@GovPenceIN) December 8, 2015
Can Pokémon Go stay on top?
A "Pidgey" Pokemon is seen on the screen of the Pokemon Go mobile app. (Credit: Reuters/Chris Helgren)
Pokémon Go has taken over millions of phones across the U.S. and the world in just a week. It almost immediately became the most-downloaded and highest-grossing mobile app where it’s available, according to app business analysis company App Annie. Just a few days after Pokémon Go launched, it was installed on more Android phones than the popular dating app Tinder, and it’s on track to surpass Twitter soon, if not at this very moment. By another measure, people are logging more minutes playing Pokémon Go each day than Instagram or Facebookers are using those apps. It’s a bona-fide sensation, with a rate of growth that’s totally unprecedented.
The success of Pokémon Go sent Nintendo’s stock price soaring, boosting the company’s value by $9 billion. Nintendo did not develop the game, but partnered with the Google/Alphabet Inc. spinoff Niantic and Pokemon Co., which is 32 percent owned by Nintendo, to make it. But how much that growth is based on actual revenue being generated by the game, and whether it’s sustainable, is not so clear.
Playing Pokémon Go since it launched has been enough to highlight serious limitations in the gameplay that could result in players losing interest, resulting in a rapid fall after the initial burst of enthusiasm. This might not come to pass, especially if Niantic adds more features to the game, like the highly-anticipated ability to trade Pokemon with other players.
Pokémon Go could still turn out to be a lasting cultural phenomenon, showing game and app developers the moneymaking potential of augmented reality, with millions of regular users. But for now the fact remains that there’s just not much to do in the game, especially for casual players, players in rural areas, and anyone not willing to shell out real money to be the very best.
Why It’s Enticing
Pokémon Go is perfectly designed to grab new players, especially anyone with a nostalgic connection to the previous games, toys, trading cards, movies, or TV shows. Even for someone without those cultural touchstones, the augmented reality aspect of the game brings out the magic of Pokémon in a way no other medium really could.
The world, it turns out, is populated by fantastic creatures, and all you need is your phone’s camera to enter that hidden world. Your desk at work, the line at the DMV, your regular old neighborhood; all are brought to life by vivid creatures that you can catch and make your own.
The fact that the game requires players to go out into the world and walk around has also proven popular. Players have shared their experiences getting exercise, going outside, and meeting new people more often than usual, all in the pursuit of catching Pokemon. Video games have always come with some related anxiety that they encourage withdrawal from the “real world,” a sedentary lifestyle, and anti-sociality. The fact that Pokemon Go has an answer to those fears has surely helped its popularity.
Catching ’em All, Over And Over Again
In essence, Pokémon Go is very simple. You catch Pokémon, make them more powerful, then use them to claim gyms for your team. But it’s the mechanics behind that that don’t bode well for its staying power.
You don’t just walk around and catch one of each of the 151 Pokémon that exist in this game. Step two in the process is catching many, many more of each Pokémon you already have, and sending them off to Professor Willow, which lets you power up your existing Pokémon.
In essence, it becomes a grind. It’s great catching your first one of each of the Pokémon around your neighborhood and on your commute to work, and even catching the same one for the fourth or fifth time can be fun. But after catching a pinser for the dozenth time to upgrade one to CP 652, all but the most dedicated trainers might start getting bored.
After you catch a bunch of the same Pokémon to make one really powerful, you bring it to a gym to fight for your team, and seize the gym from the other teams. Or if you visit a gym owned by your team, you can train your Pokémon there. Fighting is simple but chaotic. You just tap the other Pokémon to attack and swipe side to side to dodge.
For reasons it’s difficult to guess, Niantic got rid of the level system that’s been in Pokémon since the series began and replaced it with “CP” which might stand for challenge points, or combat points. I’m not totally sure. But it measures how good a Pokemon is at fighting. Most Pokemon you catch will be around 10 to 100 CP for the first several levels, getting higher as you gain levels as a trainer, which is its own thing.
Aside: One interesting thing about the game is that none of the above is really explained to the player. There are a few in-game tips that are short and cryptic. I’ve had to read articles online to figure out many of the basic functions of the game. This has probably helped hook some players. It does give you the feeling you’re exploring something unknown. But it gives a false sense of depth. when I realized I had seen much of what the game had to offer a few days in, it was disappointing.
And too bad about your CP 652 pinser, which took days of playing to build up. If you live in an area where Pokémon Go is popular, everyone at nearby gyms is way more powerful. And imagine how powerful everyone else will be in a few more weeks.
Left Behind
This all adds up to a system that isn’t very friendly to casual pokemasters, anyone who gets into the game late, or even rural players, who report finding nearly no pokémon around. That’s not to mention the technical issues that have plagued the game since launch due to its popularity. Temporary unavailability might encourage players who want to see what all the fuss is about to keep trying for a while, but eventually an annoying experience is going to be too much to put up with. Since the game is free, players could be particularly fleeting. They’ve invested nothing but time into the game, and have little reason to keep playing if they get bored.
Jan Dawson, an analyst at Jackdaw Research, told CNET the initial wave of nostalgia-driven enthusiasm might not last for such a time-consuming game. “It’s hard to imagine that being sustainable, especially once we get past the summer and people’s lives get busier again,” Pat said.
Pokémon Go could overcome these problems and keep its incredible popularity for months or even years. New features from the developers, or tweaks to keep the game fun for more casual players and rural denizens could go a long way towards retaining players. And despite the fact that I’m raising these concerns, and I’m nowhere near powerful enough to compete for a gym, something’s keeping me playing. And that surely counts for something.
Ban on Muslims entering the U.S. “unconstitutional,” said Trump’s reported VP pick Mike Pence in December
(Credit: Twitter)
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence is going to be running as vice president with Donald Trump on the Republican Party ticket, several media outlets reported on Thursday.
Just several months ago, however, Pence criticized Trump for his call to ban Muslims from entering the U.S.
“Calls to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. are offensive and unconstitutional,” Pence tweeted in December 2015.
Calls to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. are offensive and unconstitutional.
— Governor Mike Pence (@GovPenceIN) December 8, 2015
Pence was responding to a Trump campaign press release, which stated, “Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”
The Indiana governor, who was a member of the House of Representatives from 2001 to 2013, is a staunch right-winger and a proud member of the Tea Party movement.
Local news outlet IndyStar confirmed on Thursday that Pence had been selected as Trump’s running mate.
Anonymous officials also told ABC that Pence is the likely choice for vice president.
The formal announcement is scheduled for Friday morning in Manhattan.
Before entering politics, Pence worked in the media, although Salon has detailed in another article how a Trump-Pence presidency could threaten press freedoms.
Pence is also a hard-line conservative Christian. He has described himself as “a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order.”
While Pence has expressed opposition to outright banning Muslims entering the country, he has previously warned about “radical Islam.”
After the massacre at a gay Orlando nightclub on June 12, Pence tweeted, “As we mourn and grieve, we must take away from this renewed vigilance at home and confront radical Islam at the source.”
As we mourn and grieve, we must take away from this renewed vigilance at home and confront radical Islam at the source @93wibc
— Governor Mike Pence (@GovPenceIN) June 13, 2016
In February 2015, Pence also tweeted, “It’s clear we are confronting a growing threat around the world in the rise of Islamic extremism,” along with the hashtag #FoxNewsSunday.
It's clear we are confronting a growing threat around the world in the rise of Islamic extremism. #FoxNewsSunday
— Governor Mike Pence (@GovPenceIN) February 22, 2015
In past op-eds, BuzzFeed reported, Pence has also insisted that, “Despite the hysteria from the political class and the media, smoking doesn’t kill.” In one column, Pence claimed the carbon dioxide emitted by burning fossil fuels does not cause global warming.
Unlike Trump, Pence has also expressed support for the global neoliberal trade agreement the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, which was written in secret with the input of multinational corporations, and which labor and environmental groups warn would be disastrous for the economy and the climate.
Trade means jobs, but trade also means security. The time has come for all of us to urge the swift adoption of the Trans Pacific Partnership
— Governor Mike Pence (@GovPenceIN) September 8, 2014
Amy Schumer’s “not good” sexual experience is a familiar tale to other women
Amy Schumer (Credit: Reuters/Danny Moloshok)
“My first sexual experience was not a good one,” says Amy Schumer. In an interview with writer Allison Glock for the new Marie Claire, Schumer reveals a story of losing her virginity that sounds terrible — and will likely be depressingly all too familiar to many young women.
The 35 year-old comic has over the past few years won the hearts of her fans for her outspoken opinions on body image and sexuality. In her HBO special last year, she debunked myths around female desire by saying, “Every girl I know likes having sex. I love having sex. Not a weird amount — like a normal person. You’re made to feel really weird and disgusting if you’re a girl who likes to have sex.” In her instantly classic “Inside Amy Schumer” sketch “Last F**kable Day,” she enlisted a power trio of Hollywood actresses to take on the trope that females over 40 are no longer “believably f_ckable.” And in her glorious 2015 Glamour UK Women of the Year speech, she accepted her Trailblazer award by saying, “I’m probably, like, 160 pounds right now and I can catch a dick whenever I want.”
But her sex life wasn’t always so positive. Of her first sexual experience, she says, “I didn’t think about it until I started reading my journal again,” she tells Glock. “When it happened, I wrote about it almost like a throwaway. It was like, And then I looked down and realized he was inside of me. He was saying, ‘I’m so sorry’ and ‘I can’t believe I did this.'” HuffPo reports that she goes on to say that the man is no longer in her life and that she doesn’t want him punished for what happened. “This was 17 years ago,” she says. “There are just so many factors.” But she adds that in a later relationship, “I had another time with a boyfriend where I was saying, ‘No, stop,’ and it was just completely ignored.” And though she doesn’t appear to describe what happened to her as assault, she takes on rape culture in general when she says, “You know, with the rape survivor, it’s not just shaming, it’s fury. It makes people so mad if you’re not a perfect victim.”
The borderlines around consent are not always clear and easily marked. As Sarah Hepola — who’s written eloquently of her own experiences of sex, consent, and in her case, drinking — wrote earlier this year in Texas Monthly, traditional wisdom has held that “when women were being raped, they often went silent or froze. Their absence of ‘no’ was incorrectly interpreted by the man as a green light, which led to the idea that perhaps a more effective signpost for consent would be ‘yes.'” But even a yes can be a reluctant, coerced, impaired, or simply unsure one.
Writing for The Frisky back in 2011, Rachel White shared the “frozen and surreal” story of losing her virginity at age 15, and of comparing notes with friends in adulthood and realizing, “These are treasured stories. But usually, they are not happy ones.” As she said at the time, “A new study found that while guys experience a self-esteem boost after their first time having sex, women feel worse about their body image after. And past studies have revealed that women feel depressed after first time sex much moreso than guys.” In 2014, Women’s Health reported on the results of a long-range study that found “Women’s biggest sexual regret was losing their virginity to the wrong person.”And in her groundbreaking bestseller “Girls and Sex,” Peggy Orenstein talks extensively about the communication and expectations gaps between young men and women surrounding sex. She told Salon in March, “Boys will say, ‘I didn’t come or I wasn’t that attracted to her.’ Girls will talk about pain and humiliation and degradation.”
Based on the telling details that her first sexual partner apologized for what he’d done and that another partner continued even after she’d said no, Schumer’s experiences were clearly non-consensual. Yet Schumer also seems to acknowledge that in the sticky dynamics of sexual encounters, there can be times when silence is taken for acceptance, and a even “no” is taken for a mere suggestion. It’s entirely possible that neither of those men Schumer describes ever gave a second thought to what they’d done, or considered that it could be regarded as a criminal offense. It’s not clear even how she defines those experiences. If she understatedly refers to the way she lost her virginity “not good,” it’s still her story to tell as she sees fit. And it’s one a whole lot of women can no doubt relate to.
