Late Night Ramblings: From Politics to Continuity on the Golden Girls

I despair of civil discourse in this country. Corporate lobbyists and radical right wingers are encouraging people to riot at town hall meetings--filling their heads with lies about health care reform. ("It will kill your grandpa, and your daughter will be forced to have an abortion.") They are employing the tactics they deplored 40 years ago when kids protested the Vietnam war. Limbaugh compares Obama to Hitler every chance he gets. Olbermann and O'Reilly have broken their truce and are ratcheting up their attacks.

For every piece of good news--Sotomayor is confirmed, the two journalists are released from North Korea thanks to Bill Clinton--there's more bad: health care reform is in danger, crazies are getting into the mainstream media.

It's so much easier to watch Jonny Quest at midnight on Boomerang and the Golden Girls 24-7 on the Hallmark Channel or WE. Did you ever notice Blanche, Dorothy, Rose, and Sophia never mention their children, grandchildren, siblings, etc. except on the episodes where said relatives appeared. It's as if they vanished from mind when they weren't present. Let's see, Blanche had a sister (played by Barbara Babcock and Sheree North on separate episodes) and a gay brother (Monte Markham). But her father Big Daddy (David Wayne and some other guy in another episode) never mentioned his other children when he would visit Blanche. Meanwhile Dorothy also had a sister played by two different actresses (Doris Bielack and Dena Dietrich, Mother Nature on those margarine commercials) and a brother Phil who was into cross-dressing. Yet when Blanche had a tough time dealing with her brother's sexuality, Dorothy never mentioned her experiences with her sibling's transvestitism. Neither did Sophia. Strange.

Jonny Quest is a different story. Jonny's mother is dead before the series starts and she's only mentioned briefly in the first episode. She never comes up again. I guess Dr. Benton Quest is having too much fun with Race Bannon.

Why Fox Is King

During the furor over the murder of Dr. Tiller, the abortion provider in Kansas, I figured out why Bill O'Reilly is number one in his time slot and why Fox News is having its best year ever--cringeworthy though that fact may be.

O'Reilly makes it so easy for his audience with his Talking Points, superimposed on the screen for all to see. After Tiller was shot in church, O'Reilly explained why he was not to blame for inciting the lunatic who pulled the trigger. His reasons were one-sided but they were clear and easy to understand. And they were right there on the screen so you didn't have to think about it. Fox and O'Reilly are popular because they tell the viewer what to think. Right is right and wrong is wrong and there is no pesky grey area. People find that comforting with a president who relies on nuance, doubt and cognition rather than his gut like his predecessor. "This is the right thing to do, I'm 100 percent sure of it," W seemed to say. "Look, nothing in life is certain, but this seems to be the best approach,"Obama projects.

O'Reilly takes the doubt out of every issue--he's right and that's all there is to it. Johnnies sitting on their couches and swilling their beers can just turn on Fox to get their opinions. They don't even have to listen to get them, Bill puts 'em right there on the screen for them to write down--if they can write.