Lately, I have started my posts by mentioning a creativity tool or technique which I used to develop and flesh out the content on the topic du jour.  Today’s article again draws on Carl Jung’s concept of “synchronicity,” the ability to see connections where none seem to exist.  The observation which triggered today’s topic was the July 26, 2018 story on CBS Moneywatch, “Facebook stock suffers largest one-day drop in history, shedding $119 billion.”  The decline was based on data in the company’s most recent quarterly report :

• The number of active users grew more slowly than estimated.
• Imposition of new privacy laws by the European Union.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg took a one-day personal loss of $15.9 billion.  For the record, that is more than the market capitalization of Coors ($14 billion) and Macy’s ($12 billion).  No tears shed by me.  The company which promised to “Give people the power to build community and bring the world together (actual Facebook mission statement),” is nothing more a human version of crowd-funding where the currency is personal data instead of dollars.  And worse, they have lured each of us into doing their heavy lifting.

Facebook is an addiction.  A February 6, 2018 article on The Motley Fool website reported the average daily user, of which there are 1.4 billion, spends 41 minutes per day on Facebook.  No wonder Facebook is in the cross-hairs of those who want to understand how social media was such a major force in the 2016 presidential election.  Just imagine if voters had spent those 41 minutes reading a newspaper or magazine, learning more about the state of health care in America or facts about immigration.

Which brings me back to Carl Jung and synchronicity.  How do organizations which fight other addictions make the habitué and public aware of the impact of dependency?  Perhaps the best example is “The Great American Smoke-Out.”  Since 1974, when editor of the Monticello Times (MN) Lynn R. Smith first proposed the idea (then called Don’t Smoke Day), the third Thursday in November each year is designated as a challenge for smokers to eschew their habit for at least 24 hours.  At the same time, media is flooded with helpful hints and tools smokers should consider to aid in permanently ending their desire or need for nicotine.

In the same spirit, I now declare May 14 (Mark Zuckerberg’s birthday) of each year to be “The Great American Face-Out,” a 24 hour period during which Facebook users give their thumbs a rest and keep the pictures of their children, pets, latest meal or vacation to themselves.  Which begs the question, “What do I do with all that time?”  The obvious answer is pick up a major national newspaper or magazine and learn something new about what is actually happening in the United States or around the world.  But I have a better idea.  Read something you normally would never read.  Here are a few suggestions.

• Pick up a copy of The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic written by conservative talk show host Mark Levin.  It is the Koch brothers and Tea Party manifesto.  Proposed amendments include returning election of U.S. Senators to state legislatures (not by popular vote per the 17th amendment), allowing states to amend the Constitution without Congressional involvement in the process, limiting early voting, permitting two-thirds of the states to nullify federal laws and restricting judicial review by federal courts.
• Spend 30 minutes on 4Chan, the website whose patrons have come up with the QAnon conspiracy theory and believe they are being manipulated by an international cabal of pedophiles including Tom Hanks.
• Spend a few minutes on The Daily Stormer, the self-proclaimed “most-censored site on the Internet.”  Would the most censored site on the Internet start a story about a school play which explored the parallels between Anne Frank and DACA recipients by opening with the following.  “The only people that go to watch plays are homosexuals, housewives and the sons/husbands they manage to drag with them.”  Or a whole section called the “Jewish Problem.”

Why would I recommend this?  Because it is the source of much of the drivel that is spread, in sanitized form, on Facebook.  The source material puts the Facebook versions to shame. So, if you’re wondering why I cancelled my Facebook account,  it is not because I’m not interested in your lives.  I have email and you are welcome to share anything you want with me.  The real reason?  I stopped checking Facebook for a few days and guess what?  I can live without it.  Furthermore, in the real world I do not monetize my friendships.  Why would I want to be an accomplice to someone who does exactly that in the virtual world and can lose $119 billion and not have to turn to flipping burgers at McDonald’s?

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

Alternate Title:  “To Bee or Not To Bee”

Two days ago, Samantha Bee and TBS f***** up!  All of the apologies and lost sponsors cannot undo the damage.  And Bee’s supporters have spent the last 48 hours trying to parse the difference between Bee’s vulgarity and Roseanne Barr’s racist comments.  Get ready for a different perspective.  It is not about the unprecedented use of the c-word on basic cable.   (Even though the audio was bleeped out, there was no question what Bee said.)  Programs have been pushing that envelope continuously.  In fact, the same night, FX Channel censors approved the use of the f-word on the finale of “The Americans.”  And Comedy Central has given Trevor Noah free rein to call bulls*** by its full name instead of BS.

Samantha Bee’s “crime” was hypocrisy in the first degree.  If you believe Roseanne’s comparing Valerie Jarrett to an ape is racist, you also have to believe referring to a woman as a c*** is misogynist, even when the speaker is female.  The comment was triggered by a Twitter photo of Ivanka Trump holding up her child while her father was tearing families apart along the the U.S./Mexico border.  What would Bee have said if the picture was of Jared rather than Ivanka?  Certainly, not the c-word.

Imagine yourself in the writers’ room.  I have no doubt someone might have said, “Can you believe the nerve of that c***?”  But that’s where it should have ended.  The task was not to share “writer  room chatter” but to make the point in a way consistent with the program’s entertainment as well as social mission.  Consider what the reaction would have been if Bee had shown the Twitter photograph on the screen and asked.

Now what would YOU call a woman who would post this on the same day Daddy is making sure immigrants and refugees will not have the same opportunity?  [Pauses and puts her finger to her temple. Gets ready to say something then pulls back. Finally, faces the camera head-on.] Callous!  Heartless!  Inhumane! Sadistic! Vicious.  Hard-hearted.  Cold-blooded! Malevolent. Unfeeling. Unkind.  Feel free to add your own.

A writer’s best friend is NOT SpellCheck.  It’s thesaurus.com.

Let’s be clear.  Bee’s remark was never intended to be funny.  The studio audience did not laugh, they gasped as I’m sure most home viewers did also.  My first reaction as I watched in real time Wednesday night, “Another holiday (oops Christmas) present to the alt-right cultural warriors.”  And once again, I thought of my favorite Ben Bradlee line to Woodward and Bernstein in All the President’s Men.  “You did something I didn’t think was possible.  You made people feel sorry for the President.”

In truth, the best adjective to characterize  Bee and her writers is LAZY.  Why?  Because ever since Jeff Sessions announced the administration would separate children from their parents as an anti-immigration tactic, I wanted to write a clever, yet insightful commentary to expose the policy for what it is, cruel and inconsistent with American values.  Below is the best I have come up with to date, a news story a la The Onion.

Dateline:  Washington, D.C., May 31, 2018

Today, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the administration had expanded its efforts to deter immigrants and refugees from entering the United States.  In addition to ripping children from their parents arms, in limited cases, the Office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is separating  husbands and wives while being processed for deportation.  In some instances, the wives have been be sent to relocation centers.  Thomas Homan, ICE’s acting director, admitted under media questioning the policy shares some of the same problems with the parent/child protocol.  A number of spouses are currently unaccounted for.

One high profile case involves a 46 year old Slovenian immigrant who has been reported missing since May 12th.  She was last seen among the crowd welcoming home three Korean-Americans who had been released by North Korean leader Kim Jung-un.  Unconfirmed sighting have been reported in New York City and Palm Beach, Florida.

No knee-slapper, but neither is it a personal attack on any of the misguided individuals who think what they are doing will make America great again.  Writing this blog has given me a greater appreciation for the writers associated with programs like Saturday Night Live or Last Week Tonight.  I marvel at the teams that assemble the opening monologues for late night hosts Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers who are under the gun to present current events as entertainment 200 times each year.

Until Wednesday night, I felt the same way about Samantha Bee and her staff.  This morning, however, I join the chorus of those who believe TBS should take her show off the air.  And please don’t suggest I am violating her First Amendment rights to freedom of expression.  This is about the disservice she and her staff have done to the other professionals in the field of satirical humor.  There are enough people outside the profession taking pot shots at an American tradition dating back to Benjamin Franklin, Mark Twain and Will Rogers.  The last thing any of us, especially supposed allies in the resistance, should do is give fodder to support the efforts of those who want to divide the nation along cultural lines.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP

Last night, Bill Maher became the most recent defender of Michelle Wolf’s performance at the White House Correspondents Dinner (WHCD). He echoed others by saying, “She did her job!” Yes. If her job was to create sympathy for Donald Trump. On April 28, the day of the WHCD dinner Trump’s approval rating according to the Real Clear Politics average was minus 12.4 percent. This morning it sits at minus 7.7 percent.  The 44.4 percent approval rating is Trump’s highest since February 20, 2017  when a lot of skeptics were still saying, “Give him a chance.”

Let’s see.  What are all the positive things that have happened over the past seven days which might account for this shift in the polls?

• More evidence that the D.C. “swamp” has gotten even swampier a la Scott Pruitt and Ronny Jackson?  NO!
• Admission everyone in the Trump White House and members of his legal team cannot seem to get their Stormy Daniels story straight?  NO!
• A Chinese boycott of U.S. grown sorghum which will have a major impact on the farm states which voted overwhelmingly for Trump?  NO!
• Admission by Marco Rubio the GOP Tax Bill he voted for has not helped working Americans?  NO!
• VP Mike Pence calling pardoned former Maricopa County sheriff and Arizona Senate candidate Joe Arpaio “a tireless champion of the rule of law?”  NO!
•  Law suits by seven states to force Trump and the Justice Department to end the DACA program?  NO!
• Emails which indicate Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who attended the June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower was an informant with direct ties to  Putin’s prosecutor general Yuri Chaika?  NO!
• Pew and Monmouth polls which show a majority of Americans support special counsel Robert Mueller and his ability to complete the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election?  NO!

I no longer expect any of these or future revelations to influence Trump’s 35-40 percent base.  But this nearly five percent approval increase is coming from somewhere else.  I would bet the mortgage these voters have not changed their support for permanent status for DACA eligible immigrants, net neutrality, legalization of marijuana, reasonable gun control legislation, affordable health care, etc.  On all of these issues, a decisive majority support the progressive position.

Trump seems to succeed only when he identifies opponents and then tags them as the epitome of everything that is wrong with the United States.  For three years, it was Hillary Clinton.  And Nancy Pelosi.  Then Kathy Griffin.  Now Michelle Wolf, handed to Trump on a silver platter, joins the Four Horsewomen of the Apocalypse.  And it is significant his targets are always women.  A tenet of 1950s-based Trumpism is that the female gender is an economic and cultural threat to post-war America when “things were great.”

Wolf’s defenders are also calling out the White House press for apologizing to the White House and public for her remarks.  “What did they expect?”  Wolf, herself, echoed as much.  After her first reference to porn stars, she said, “Yep, kiddos this is who you’re getting tonight.”  But it is unfair to lay all the blame at the feet of those who sponsored this event for the purpose of underwriting the education and careers of their potential successors.

This is a culture war.  And you do not win by enlisting stereotypes who play into the hands of your opponents.  If we had a living,  breathing Democratic National Committee (DNC) they should have been the first to raise a red flag.  As soon as Trump announced he would stage a political rally opposite the WHCD, several things were obvious.  First, Trump would use his platform to reinforce the view that the White House press is an elite group of Washington insiders out to get him.  CHECK  Second, by encouraging members of his staff to attend, especially Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump knew there would be photo ops of tortured faces as his team was roasted.  CHECK  Third, in Trump’s absence there would be no counterbalance to the comedian’s shtick, regardless of who it was.  Americans love a fair fight, and this would not be one.  CHECK  CHECK

DNC Chair Tom Perez should have known better.  Obama’s former communications gurus such as David Axelrod or Josh Earnest, who were responsible for their boss’ widely praised performances at previous WHCDs, should have stepped in and offered some advice.  Think about this event as a special episode of “Friends,” not the Red Wedding from “Game of Thrones.”  How about two comedians in the SNL tradition of Jane Curtain and Dan Aykroyd’s “Point/Counter-Point?”  How about a comedian who would roast members of the White House press corps rather than Trump?  A little self-deprecating humor might have gone a long way toward offsetting Trump’s rants about the fourth estate.  And it would have put human faces on the hard-working journalists who Trump calls “the enemy of the people.”  Every pundit who covers this administration constantly says, “This is not business as usual.”  Then neither should the WHCD have been business as usual.

Ben Bradlee is turning over in his grave.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP