With Trump and Hillary "Worst" is a Coin Toss
Another political campaign, another broken promise. But this promise wasn’t broken by one of the candidates. I broke it.I swore I wouldn’t...
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President Obama's Nuclear Non-Apology, Apology.
Barack Obama never said the words “sorry” or “I apologize,” so technically it wasn’t an apology. As the first sitting American president to ever visit Hiroshima, Japan, the world was focused on every syllable Obama would say.“Seventy-one years ago” began the president, “on a bright, cloudless morning, death fell from the sky and the world was changed.” Of course, 75 years ago, on a bright, cloudless...
Read MoreCan We Handle the Truth About Political Correctness?
I knew a guy who loved to tell blatantly racist jokes. We’ll call him “Mr. Name Withheld” because it’s possible he still walks among us. In addition to his other charms, Mr. Name Withheld also had no concept of personal space. He would grab my arm and literally pull me so close I could count the bumper crop of hairs growing out of his enormous tomato nose. Then he’d go into his act: “Two blacks walk into the welfare office ...”
Read MoreMiddle Class? Fat Chance!
The bad news is the American middle class is shrinking. The worse news is the average American’s middle is growing. At the same time incomes are going down, waistlines are going up.The Pew Research Center crunched Census Bureau numbers and found in 203 out of 229 metropolitan areas, including Los Angeles, the percentage of households qualifying as “middle class” fell since the turn of the millennium. In places like Midland, Texas, it’s actually good...
Read MoreIn the PC world, every word can hurt us
I’m big with criminals.Occasionally I get letters from prison. Sometimes a letter will come from the county clink and sometimes I get mail from one of California’s popular state penitentiaries. So this might be a case of biting the hand that feeds me.Last week, Karol Mason, the Assistant U.S. Attorney General told The Washington Post that the Justice Department would no longer use the terms “felon” and “convict” when referring to felons...
Read MoreWaving the wrong flag only makes Trump stronger
Attention Mexican flag-waving, cop-car rocking, bottle-throwing anti-Trump protesters; The Donald thanks you. Donald Trump’s horrible rise to the top of the GOP heap has been zipping along on two separate but co-equal tracks: a.) he’s clearly the front-runner to be the nominee of the Republican Party and b.) He’s guaranteed to lose in November. Not just lose, get slaughtered.Every poll in every demographic in all 50 states indicates Trump will be...
Read MoreSweeping changes are upon us
The Wife and I are not particularly neat people. While our personal hygiene is beyond reproach, we have a habit of stacking things in piles around the house and forgetting about them. Dry cleaning has been known to hang on doorknobs for days (weeks) at a time. Old copies of this newspaper tend to collect on my side of the bed, and The Wife hasn’t actually seen the surface of her desk since the first round of the 2014 NBA finals.Throw in two shedding cats and a warren of...
Read MoreAs seen on TV
I actually opened up the back of the TV cabinet and successfully installed The Wife’s new Amazon Fire TV device. What, you ask, is Amazon Fire TV? I have no idea. But that’s not the point. The point is I actually hooked up a digital device and it works! This is an unprecedented event in my home. For those of you under 35 this might seem like bragging about exhaling, but that’s my brontosaurus parked outside, so cut me some slack. Having grown up with rabbit...
Read MoreHip ‘Hamilton’ makes history hop
The very first of the famous “Got Milk?” TV commercials featured a young history geek obsessed with the infamous duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton.Unable to answer a radio trivia contest because his mouth was glued shut by a glob of peanut butter and his milk glass is empty, the Burr/Hamilton spot was voted one of the top 10 commercials of all time in a USA Today poll. Besides keeping a lot of dairy cows employed, that commercial may well have been...
Read MoreWas last week Donald Trump’s Waterloo?
The S.S. Trump, the once unsinkable juggernaut, is taking on water after a series of self-inflicted torpedoes that have made the most unlikely presidential front-runner a little less likely.If Donald Trump never gets to “make America great again”, the week ending the day after April Fool’s Day will be the one historians point to as his Waterloo.Once again the chattering class claims Trump has “gone too far.” I’m not so sure. He’s...
Read MoreSinatra Jr., Shandling and a year to mourn the famous and fabulous
They keep on dying. Frank Sinatra Jr., Keith Emerson, Ernestine Anderson, Gogi Grant, Joe Garagiola, Ken Howard and now Garry Shandling. We lost all of them since March 10th!This is shaping up to be the deadliest year in Hollywood since the arrival of talking pictures.Natalie Cole, Pat Harrington Jr., David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Dan Haggerty, Mic Gillette, Glenn Frey, Abe Vigoda, Paul Kantner, Bob Elliott, Maurice White, Dan Hicks, George Gaynes, Harper Lee, George...
Read MoreCoastal Commission harpoons SeaWorld
Shamu is now taboo.After fighting off PR blow after PR blow, including CNN’s relentless airings of a damning documentary, “Blackfish”, alleging all kinds of mistreatment and cruelty, SeaWorld Entertainment, Inc.’s CEO Joel Manby threw in the towel, announcing the famed marine park would end it’s captive breeding program and phase out all live Orca shows sending 29 killer whales to the unemployment line.SeaWorld surrendered. For the...
Read MoreThe deadly false compassion of Democrats
During last week’s Democratic debate in Florida, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders engaged in a can-you-top-this contest to see who could win the most votes by further weakening our already phantom border security.Both candidates pledged to end deportations of “hard working immigrant families” while Mrs. Clinton made a particular point of ridiculing Republican front-runner Donald Trump’s proposed “big beautiful wall” on our southern border.
Read MoreFrom email accounts to Netflix queues, passing on passwords
“Swordfish!”Every Marx Brothers fan knows the password is always “Swordfish.” That was the magic word that got Groucho, Harpo, Chico and yes, even Zeppo, into a speakeasy in “Horse Feathers” way back in 1932.That password I can remember. If only I could remember any of the 8,000 passwords I need to navigate 2016’s digital universe. From my various e-mail accounts to corporate portals and Netflix queues, the world...
Read MoreThe Party’s over, no debate about it
I told myself I wasn’t going to look. But like a gruesome six-car pileup on the 405 when it finally came time for last week’s GOP debate in Houston, I peeked.At first it was just a quick glance. Then I stared, transfixed and horrified that one of those characters could actually be our next president. The herd has been thinned from the early days of the campaign when there were more candidates than voters. Undoubtedly the lineup will be trimmed again after 11...
Read MoreAnother cheesy scandal rears its head in America
Et tu, Parmesan?We can’t trust the cops. We can’t trust the priests. We can’t trust our 401(k)s and Lord knows we can’t trust politicians. Now we can’t even trust cheese!Yes, those lovely, snowy flakes and slivers of aged and shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano have now joined the long list of once venerated institutions tainted by the greedy hand of corner cutters and cons.Last week the Food and Drug Administration blew the whistle on a...
Read MoreD.C. gridlock comes to L.A. — again
I heard them coming before I looked up, the distinctive thwap, thwap, thwap of rotor blades slicing through an unusually warm February sky. A conga line of helicopters heading west to east could mean only one of two things; either the Medfly has returned and we’re about to be sprayed with malathion or President Obama had another guest shot on “Ellen.” The Entertainer-in-Chief is a regular on America’s talk show circuit and, therefore, a frequent visitor to...
Read MoreHere’s to a world where crime doesn’t actually pay
It’s official: Crime really does pay.Americans have bellyached forever about “those SOBs in Washington we pay to rob us blind!” Last week the Washington City Council flipped the script and approved a plan that will pay people not to commit crimes.Modeled on a 2010 Richmond, California, program, D.C.’s “Neighborhood Engagement Achieves Results Act” will, among other things, pay 50 individuals up to $9,000 a year to not rape, rob, murder...
Read MoreCheck please! I’m just not fit to dine with foodies
My apologies to the Sullivans. My stunted palate once again became the tail that wagged the dog and ruined another swanky L.A. dinner party. Kirk and Deann Sullivan are former neighbors and longtime friends. Deann also happens to be a foodie and a gifted hostess who loves trying new recipes. I, on the other hand, have the gastronomic sensibilities of a 9-year-old. A perfect meal for me is a jar of peanut butter and a spoon. If it comes shrink-wrapped on a small square of white cardboard with cream filling, I’m in. If you tracked down the recipe after watching Anthony Bourdain on CNN wolf down a forkful while squatting on a bamboo mat in a hut in Cambodia, I’m out.
Read MoreMass anger could be quelled through political reform
From Porter Ranch to Flint, from Ferguson, Missouri to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills, America is in the midst of a gigantic national temper tantrum. To paraphrase Marlon Brando’s famous line from “The Wild One”: “What’re you mad about, America?” “Whaddya got?” The rage is palpable. We’re foaming at the mouth over just about everything; from micro-aggressions to trigger warnings, mass shootings to global warming, digital displacement to income inequity, White privilege to Black Lives Matter, anti-vaxxers, Truthers, Birthers, “Feel the Bern”, “Make America Great Again”, HITLER!
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