Trump's doofy attorney, image from source, NY Daily News
This clip is everywhere, but it brings me so much schadenfreude, I have to run it. For one thing, this Trump attorney, Michael Cohen, comes off as a supreme ass. If I had to guess, I'd say he is a dyed-in-the-wool bully, and has exactly the countenance you love to see "get theirs." But it's just so comical (and refreshing) to see the journalist, Brianna Keilar, being tenacious, and rattling the guy. "Says who?" Says everybody! [Excerpt] SEE IT: Donald Trump’s attorney keeps asking ‘Says who’ when confronted with polls that the billionaire is losing Change the name to the “Says Who” Room. Appearing on CNN’s “The Situation Room,” Donald Trump’s tough-talking attorney jumped on the defensive when confronted with the candidate’s dismal polling numbers. . .
As an atheist, I can get tripped up on language, so I shouldn't be too hard on Wolf Blitzer. I had to train myself to say gesundheit when somebody sneezes, rather than "god bless you." But not all nearly automatic religious phrases are so easy to extract from the vocabulary. There are so many, most people probably don't even realize they come from the Bible. "Oh, god," and "Jesus Christ" are just the most obvious ones. But then, I'm not a high-paid journalist on CNN, I'm a hobbyist blogger.
What Blitzer does in this clip is make the assumption that if you are from Oklahoma, you must be a Christian. And while it is kind of the default there, and in much of America, it's not something you should assume. It's like assuming that the person you are talking to is heterosexual, it's not always the case, and could be embarrassing, depending upon the question. Anyway, part of Blitzer's mindset may have been that so many people when commenting upon a tragedy automatically resort to "prayer."
Whether it's a sincere belief that it will somehow do some good, or it's just a reflexive thing to say, "I'm sending my prayers" and similar phrases just filled Facebook and Twitter, not to mention the news channels*. Most people probably mean well, and surely some are in the same situation as I am, with a religion-saturated mental English phrase book. It has something to do with why I haven't blogged about the Oklahoma tornadoes until now. What can I add to this discussion?
Sure, I'm sorry, and it's heartbreaking to see and hear the details of what's going on. I can say "my heart goes out to the survivors," of course, which is exactly as helpful as prayer, which is to say, not much. So, I donated to the Red Cross. And I'm asking you to do it too. It's not even difficult.
Just get out your cell phone, start a new text to 90999 (where you'd ordinarily put a phone number), with the message: REDCROSS That will automatically donate $10 to the American Red Cross, and will be added to your phone bill. It literally couldn't be easier.
[Excerpt] CNN’s Wolf Blitzer tells atheist tornado survivor: ‘You gotta thank the Lord’
With the number of atheists continuing to rise, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Tuesday afternoon learned the danger of assuming on live television that his interviewee is a Christian. “I guess, you gotta thank the Lord, right?” he told the survivor of a deadly tornado that ripped through Oklahoma. “Do you thank the Lord?. . .”
*As an aside, I've got to say that I find the notion of prayer in these situations to be hard to fathom. To me, prayer is basically wishing, hoping, begging to get what you want, with the intensity going up according to the direness of the wish. When something good comes to pass (survival, good health, good fortune), "God answered our prayers." When something bad happens, you have to get down on your knees and pray some more. And have people pray for you, even if who you're praying for is already dead, or missing. For the missing, prayer is really perplexing. It's almost like a Schrödinger's cat exercise. Since we don't know whether the missing person is alive or dead, offering up a prayer essentially makes them that cat in the box, and our prayer can decide its fate. When in reality, that person is either really alive or dead. The prayer isn't going to change that. And you're offering these prayers to a deity that is responsible for the natural disaster in the first place! Further, what are the implications of being saved by a prayer, when there is death and devastation all around you? They didn't pray (or have loved ones who prayed for them) hard enough? They weren't worthy? So, now maybe you understand why I have such difficulty expressing myself and dealing with others' expressions after tragedies like this. When you are a person who puts "God" (as a concept and a being) on more or less equal footing with Superman and Yosemite Sam, it is difficult to hear this imaginary being invoked repeatedly as though it does any good. Besides making the person who expresses the sentiment feel better, of course.
I know the blog is very video-heavy today, but this one is too sweet to ignore. Some of the best bits of Saturday Night Live over the last ten years or so has been a parody of Celebrity Jeopardy! with Will Farrell as Alex Trebek and Darrell Hammond as a clueless (but hilarious!) Sean Connery. The joke of the bit is that celebrities are kinda stupid.
Well, CNN's Wolf Blitzer proved he's ready for an SNL skit, by getting his clock cleaned by. . .Andy Richter?
There are certain things that I as a blogger simply cannot resist. A particularly pithy description of Sarah Palin, like the headline above is one of them. It was used as the title for the following video of CNN's Jack Cafferty, opining on the inanity and dishonesty of Sarah Palin's recent FaceBook statements on President Obama's and the Democrats' health care reform plans. And here it is.
The Cafferty File: Sarah Palin Is A Clown Who Is Destroying The Image Of Women In Politics
I went over to FreeRepublic again today, to see their reaction to the Hillary Clinton interviews this morning on the political chat shows. As happens often over there, my eye was drawn to a different story, one about Bill Maher.
They've linked to a story at NewsBusters.org, a (very) right-wing "news" site. NewsBusters has posted transcripts and comments from a Bill Maher interview on CNN. The obvious intent of the article is to anger you, and to make you dislike Bill Maher and his views. Funny thing, even with the spin, I agree with Maher. See what you think:
Maher on CNN: Petraeus and Maliki ‘Stooges’ For President Bush
UPDATE: OK, I still can't figure out the code for posting CNN videos (they don't make it easy), but I have a YouTube video of the same thing. The RawStory link is still worth a click for their fine reporting.
Sorry, spoke too soon. YouTube is having trouble. Up soon, I hope.
UPDATE II: OK, here we go. This video does not contain the report aired immediately before of Dr. Sanjay Gupta, sort of slamming Michael Moore, right before a live telecast. That's why he starts out upset here. To see the entire video, just click the orignal link at the top of the post. Othewise, click here.
