Ya gotta love the Huffington Post. They just ran a story about a ten year old Florida girl who was attacked by an 8’9″ alligator and saved herself by prying open the animal’s lower jaw. According to the article, Florida Fish and Game officials corroborated the story. Pretty cool!

I would like either those officials or the author of the article to hear my story of the day I donned my waders, grabbed my fly rod and caught my limit of ten rainbow trout in my toilet.

I don’t doubt the child was grabbed by a gator. Nor do I doubt it let her go. But to claim she had the strength to pry open the jaws of a gator intent on harming her, flies in the face of reality. Sure, an adrenaline pumped grandma might be able to lift a car enough to free a grandchild trapped beneath, but If an 8ft. gator wanted to take the girl, it would have done so and no unarmed person would have been able to stop it from rolling her to bits and pieces. Period. Case closed.

I

As it became clear the Republicans’ version of a healthcare bill to replace Obamacare was going to pass  in the House of Representatives, the Democrats present began to sing a portion of the 1969 song “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye”. No kidding. They actually did! They felt the passage of the bill would lose Republican seats in the 2018 midterm elections and this was the serious, proper and mature way of issuing an ominous prognostication.

Certainly it was true to form. However, should the Democrats prediction not come to pass, I think it would be equally correct for the Republicans to chant “Neener, Neener!”

Laugh if you will. Many of you voted for these children.

Is it any wonder much of the world doesn’t take the U.S. seriously?

Samantha Bee hosted an alternative to the traditional Whitehouse Correspondents’ Dinner. Why not? Trump wasn’t going to show up.

In her opening monologue, Ms. Bee mentioned that a functioning democracy relies on a free press. I think she is absolutely correct. But, please indulge me by answering several questions for yourself.

With freedom, doesn’t responsibility come?

Which should be the primary focus of a free press: the delivery of facts, or the presentation of opinions, excitement and/or entertainment?

Is it the job of a free press to attempt to create news?

Are journalists’ opinions news or are they just opinions already protected by freedom of speech?

What was the point of the “Not The Whitehouse Correspondents’ Dinner? Aside from the comedy, did it contain a valuable message that rose to a level above pubertal angst?

Personally, I think it needed more fart jokes.

Whenever I begin to fret the world is running short of facetious condescension,  I tune to MSNBC and watch Rachael Maddow.  Voila!

Does this ass make my dress look fat?

What is the difference between Heidi Klum and Ruth Bader Ginsburg?

How do you treat a rattlesnake bite to the scrotum?

What does Hillary look like in a thong?

Would you like Ipecac with that?

Come on, you’re not wearing a fake nose?

Where the hell is that damned ripcord?

May I use that condom when you’re done?

Why don’t you pick my scab and see for yourself?

Should Anne Ramsey judge the Miss Universe pageant?

Honey, should I let the surgeon remove my thirteenth toe?

Is this your first execution?

Do your labia minora lose their flavor on the bedpost overnight?

Shouldn’t you be wearing more makeup?

Was that really the dog?

Do you pee in the shower, Sister Mary?

Can I get my alphabet soup in braille?

You mean, that’s as big as it ever gets?

What wine goes well with Chihuahua?

If you break wind in your wet suit while you’re scuba diving, will you bob to the surface?

Which would you rather do…snuggle with Nancy Pelosi or suck on a camel’s nose until its lungs collapse?

Lying, in its simplest form, is the act of providing information known by the provider to be different from the fact(s) he/she believes to be true. A more subtle form is to provide information based upon the knowledge that one is aware of few or no facts to support their information. The information, in this case, is not the lie. The presentation is.

While one might assume an actor is lying as he/she performs the role of a fictional character, or a parent is lying while reading a bedtime story to their offspring; there is a difference. The purpose of lying is subterfuge.

Politicians are professional liars who employ myriad forms of distracting and supportive energies as they prevaricate. Grandiosity, condescension, smiles and laughter, snide remarks and asides, jokes and, of course, accusations.

The value of veracity is subjective to the individual. To some, its importance is easily adjusted according to their agenda or convenience. There are those who only tell the truth by accident.

Trump, from what I gather, tends to generalize by claiming what may be true of one or several apples in the barrel is probably true of more than he can reasonably prove. He avoids openly lying by refusing to confront questions.

Hillary, on the other hand, takes the tack of blaming Mom for catching her with her hand in the verbal cookie jar. She doesn’t avoid openly lying, but turns the tables by simply changing the subject and accusing others of something else.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz places no value on veracity at all. I don’t really hold her at fault for that because I don’t believe she has the ability to conceptualize the difference between right and wrong. The same is true with Pelosi (but for a different reason). She’s simply a raving lunatic.

This brings us to Bashar al-Assad. If he is a liar, he’s the best I’ve seen . His articulate, relatively unemotional manner of speaking, combined with his Socratic method of dealing with the questions posed to him are a pleasure to behold. Continue reading STYLES OF PREVARICATION. →

My previous post poked fun at MSNBC. In the interest of my own “fair and balanced” reporting, Fox news is in the crosshairs of this opinion.

Fox news channel’s founder, Roger Ailes, was forced to retire after allegations of sexual harassment came to light through complaints made by multiple women who worked for the company. The New York Times reports that Fox’s own investigation found merit in the allegations. Now, it’s Bill O’Reilly’s turn. If one is to believe the complaints, O’Reilly, too, is guilty of sexual harassment in the workplace. This appears to be an endemic issue at Fox News.

Megyn Kelly left. Gretchen Carlson sued. Many other behind the scene people complained. Greta Van Susteren left (different issue…$)

Fox News, in its “fair and balanced” reporting, blatantly favored Donald Trump during the presidential campaign. The same Donald Trump who was caught on tape claiming he could grab women by their pussies because he was famous. More politically conservative sexual shenanigans, (if only in attitude).

Rupert Murdoch would do well to hire someone to run Fox News who could keep male conservative’s sexual misbehavior out of the workplace. Maybe Bill Clinton would consider taking the job.

Let’s keep this simple. Not a lot of specifics.

Reportedly, Trump ordered a 59 cruise missile attack on an airfield in Syria believed to have been the same airfield which, itself, had launched a suspected sarin nerve gas bombing attack on anti-Assad rebel forces and civilians (also in Syria), killing upwards of 100 people. That was, in fact NEWS.

Chemical weapons are banned and Syria was supposed to have destroyed its stockpile according to the “red line” Obama set and then didn’t enforce. So, Trump did and the media loved it.

Enter Brian Williams.

Yes, the same Brian Williams, who, in early 2015, was forced to apologize for lying to his audience about having been on a helicopter hit by an RPG earlier in Iraq. He was actually on another helicopter. (People often lie when they feel inadequate.) In this current case, Williams called images of the missiles launched by U.S. warships in the Mediterranean “beautiful”. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It is subjective. News is objective. Bri-guy included music by Leonard Cohen to enhance his report. This was a deadly, serious story taken into the fanciful, imaginary realms of an incompetent, misfit, pseudo-journalist’s fairytale agenda. In other words,  MSNBC’s modus operandi.

The media also saw fit to consider Brian’s comment newsworthy. Silly children in a serious profession.

I would be remiss not to mention that I, too, found the images to be beautiful; but this is my opinion blog…not a newscast.

I just watched as Rachael Maddow (MSNBC) gloriously gushed about a block-buster scoop BuzzFeed broke regarding Carter Page having been unwittingly recruited by Russian spies. (He wasn’t. He spoke of the energy business and provided publicly available research documents and samples from a lecture he’d given at New York University to somebody he thought was in the industry). Dear God! Whatever will we do now? Please read on…. Continue reading RACHAEL MADDOW IS @ IT AGAIN. →

I spent a couple of decades covering the news as an independent video journalist and, for once, I have an opinion as a journalist. The media are biased.

This is not to say commentary should be avoided. Commentary can be useful in spurring healthy debate. But, commentary is not news and commentary is all that is currently available.

I don’t care whether you are talking about the liberal main stream media which Trump constantly blasts, or Fox news that is constantly in the liberal crosshairs. When you are watching the broadcasts, you are watching commercials which break for other commercials. This is similar in the print and radio media. Just like the political parties, these are folks who believe members of the general public are not bright enough to assess facts on their own.

My time spent delivering stories to local news outlets was focused on providing simple provable facts, without bias. I gave it the old college try, but alas, it was all for naught. Even the most honorable TV anchor’s reading of the story was tainted by the angle applied by the 23 year old who wrote the piece.

Is it any wonder the nation finds itself divided? The public is spoon-fed, and subsequently regurgitates  the media’s own biases. We have no objective sources.

A true journalist should not deliver news with any passion. It should be presented in cold blood.

“A six mile wide asteroid is on a collision course with earth. It will impact in seventeen minutes. And, now for sports.”