Month: July 2020

Correction: Kayne West Is Running

Kanye was running.

Then he wasn’t running.

Now, apparently, he’s back to running.  He’s on the ballot in Oklahoma.  He paid the $35,000 fee to get on the ballot so at least the voters of Oklahoma will be able to vote for Kanye if they want.

Fortunately, he already missed the filing deadline in Texas so I won’t be forced to make that choice.  Sometimes, you just get lucky and dodge the bullet.

Nick Cannon Gets Dropped

The headline below is from CBS news:

Nick Cannon dropped by ViacomCBS over “anti-Semitic” comments

I have to wonder why “anti-Semitic” is put in scare quotes.  Claiming that the Rothschilds are among those secretly controlling the world is one of the oldest anti-Semitic conspiracies out there.  It was one that was used by Hitler and which is still used by David Duke.  When someone cites that theory, there’s no need to act as if there’s some sort of controversy over whether or not they’re being anti-Semitic.  They are.

On a positive note, I’m seeing a lot of people — of all races and religions — condemning Nick Cannon’s comments.  That’s certainly an improvement over what I’ve seen in the past, when people have either ignored comments like this or acted as if they’re just evidence of isolated eccentricity.  It’s a step in the right direction.

The Oldest Hatred

Bari Weiss’s resignation letter from the New York Times is certainly something.  Give it a read.

I’ve seen a lot of different responses to Weiss’s resignation and the letter.  Some people are on her side while some are saying she’s a hypocrite who supports cancel culture when she’s the one doing the cancelling.  What I’ve noticed is that few people seem to be commenting on her accusation that the Times is, at the very least, unconcerned with anti-Semitism.

Open anti-Semitism is on the rise.  It’s something that people don’t want to talk about but the evidence is all around.  It’s currently the one bigotry that unites both the Right and the Left.  For angry conspiracy theorists everywhere, the number one solution to all of life’s problems seems to be to blame the Jews.  And yet, despite numerous physical attacks on Jews and despite several prominent people openly sharing anti-Semetic memes on social media, anti-Semitism is the hatred that few seem to be willing to call out.

Why is being anti-Semitic the only thing you apparently cannot get cancelled for?

Say Goodbye To The Redskins

The word has come down that the Washington Redskins will be changing their name.  Since I’ve always been a Ravens fan, I don’t really care one way or the other.

The rumor is that the former Redskins were planning on announcing today that their new name would either be the Warriors or the Red Tails but those plans fell apart when it was discovered that both of those names are already copyrighted.

I don’t care much for either name.  Warriors is too generic.  While I understand why some are in favor of Red Tails, it’ll lead to everyone calling the team “the Tails” and does anyone really want that?

My personal choice would be the Washington Swamp Things.

That may just be me, though.

In Memory of Kelly Preston

Hearing that Kelly Preston died yesterday really hurts.

If you were growing up in the late 80s or the 90s, Kelly Preston was probably one of your first crushes.  She was undeniably beautiful but she was also a good actress, though she never really got as many roles as she deserved.  She was usually just cast as “the girlfriend” or occasionally “the wife.”  She appeared in several romantic comedies as the bad girl who would inevitably tempt the film’s star away from the girl that he was meant to be with.  There were only a few films — like Alexander Payne’s Citizen Ruth — where she really got to show what she could do.  But even when she played a stereotypical role, she always did it with so much skill that you got the feeling that there was more going on beneath the surface.  Even when she played a character who was meant to be unsympathetic, it was hard not to like her.

Her films were popular on HBO and Cinemax when I was growing up.  Later on, I guess she was best known for being married to John Travolta.  I read somewhere the she stepped back from acting so that she could raise their family.  Even when she was in her 40s and her 50s, she still seemed came across as being just as youthful and energetic as she did in the films that she made when she was a teenager.  I think her death has left us all feeling a little bit older today.

She will be missed.

Kanye West For President?

Yesterday, Kayne West announced that he was running for President in 2020.

A normal person would look at that news and remember that Kanye has a history of erratic and eccentric behavior.  They would realize that it’s next to impossible to join a presidential election at the last minute.  They would consider that it’s already legally impossible for Kanye to get on the ballot in several states.  All of the parties that have 50-state ballot access have already selected their candidates.  Even if some bankrupt, used-to-be-big party like the Reform Party nominated Kanye, that would still only get him on two states.  If Kanye can’t get a party to nominate him, he’ll have to get people on the ground to sign petition to get him on the ballot in the remaining states.  That’s not a small undertaking.  It’s not something that anyone can do just off the top of their head.

Beyond the fact that it’s next to impossible for Kanye to become a serious candidate at this late date, there’s also the fact that Kayne already announced that he was going to run for President in 2015.  Then, he forgot about it.  Now, he’s doing it again.  He’ll forget about it again.  That’s what Kayne does.

Normal people would just shrug Kanye off but this is 2020 and there aren’t many normal people around.  The amount of panic that I’ve seen online over Kanye running and potentially taking votes away from Biden is really something to behold.  (This, despite the fact that Kanye is currently more popular with Trump’s voters than Biden’s.)  People have so bought into the myth that Hillary would have won if just not for those pesky third parties that some of them are in full meltdown mood just because of Kanye acting like Kanye.

Kanye’s not going to run so it really doesn’t matter.  Still, if your candidate is so weak that people would rather vote for Kanye West than for him, the problem isn’t with Kayne.  It’s with your candidate.