More FLDS, The Pope Visits The US, An Obama Profile, And Football Player Herschel Walker' s Mental Illness (Tuesday's Show)
Hi everybody. Would you care to wager on what we're beginning with tonight? If you said the FLDS raid, you get a cookie. Apparently the members of the sect are continuing with their PR campaign and have released pictures they took of the raid to the media, and the media is more than happy to show them to us. From the pictures we can see that the cops came packing some heat. That probably was pretty scary for those people, but the cops didn't know if they were walking into another Waco (anniversary 4/19--See? These days are cursed!), so what are you going to do?
David Mattingly then joins us live and informs us the mothers are still pretty ticked. In a taped piece that follows, David goes into the compound to talk to the women, but when it comes to getting clear ages out of them, things get a little weird. He asks one woman how old she was when she got married and then how old she is now, and it's fairly apparent she's doing some sort of calculation in her head before answering. Anderson Cooper wonders how deceptive the women are being. Obviously David can't say for sure, though he notes a history of deception regarding outsiders.
Moving on to a Dan Simon piece on polygamists north of the border, British Columbia to be exact. Man, they're everywhere! So anyway, Dan talks to this dude that was excommunicated from Warren Jeffs' church and living in a community split between loyalty to Jeffs and loyalty to excommunicated dude (who is a bit a jerk, I must say). But all this child and parent-separating going on in Texas has caused them all to come together in their opposition to the raid. Yay for unity? Sigh. Also? Dan rides a horse.
Next up, here come da Pope! Did you know his head holiness (or whatever) was coming to these here united states? Did you care? I gotta say, I'm pretty underwhelmed about the whole thing. When John Paul came I sort of had an interest, but this guy? Eh. At this point you've probably gathered that I'm not Catholic, but the religion has always been at least a peripheral part of my life because of all my Catholic family and friends. Hell, my father studied to be a priest, but decided it wasn't for him (and my existence is grateful for that decision). My grandma used to give directions based on parish locations and when I was a kid I even took communion once (which I learned afterwards was a no no). So I think I have the Catholic cred to say, "The Pope's coming? Meh."
Of course, the buzz related to the visit is all about what the Pope is going to say about the sex abuse scandal. CNNer John Allen, who joins us live, got to ask him a question about that in a highly stage-managed "press conference" and the Pope replied about how ashamed he was and blah blah blah. Not good enough. By the way, the back-to-back coverage of the FLDS and Pope stories reminded me of Bill Maher's New Rules from last week (he compares them). I have a love/hate relationship with Bill and I'm not sure I agree with him on this one, but it's definitely worth a watch. The point I'm talking about starts about halfway in, and it's Maher, so the whole thing is NSFW.
Transitioning now to an Anderson piece that squishes Barack Obama's life down to three cable news segments. I'm not going to really knock this because I know there's plenty of people out there who don't know the candidates, but man, at this point I think I know more about Obama than some of my friends. Anyhoo, here we go, in possibly not exact chronological order: Born in Hawaii to a Kenyan father and white mother, father was absentee, mother remarried an Indonesian, moved to Jakarta, saw poverty, got teased, went to prep school back in Hawaii, tried drugs to numb identify confusion, went to college, started going by Barack as opposed to Barry, was an underachiever, mother kicked his butt into gear, got a job trying to help the community, got frustrated, went to Harvard law, met Michelle, worked for civil rights law firm, married Michelle, joined Wright's church, won Illinois state senate seat, ran for Congress, lost, ran for senate...and this is where I have to pause the longest run-on sentence ever.
The guy in the piece (Obama expert?) says the following: "His broad support in the U.S. Senate race in 2004 was unheard of in Illinois politics for a black politician. He won in white areas of Illinois that no -- that black people even today don't venture into." Um, perhaps it would be pertinent to note that his opponent was Alan Keyes, who by most accounts is frickin insane! I mean, hello! That race should have been, and was, a total cake walk. Obama deserves praise for a lot of things, but winning that election in a landslide really isn't one of them. "Barack Obama: This is Your Life" ends with him keeping a low profile in the senate his first year and then running for president. As they say kids, the rest is history. Also, for the trivia buffs out there, at one point they play music that is totally the same thing that played in "Fahrenheit 9-11" when the opening credits rolled.
On now to a Sanjay Gupta piece on football player Herschel Walker, who suffers from dissociative identity disorder. This used to be known as multiple personality disorder, but they changed the name because sufferers have personality fragments that prevent them from forming one personality, not fully formed multiple personalities. Anyway, we get the requisite "Sybil" clip and also meet Herschel's ex-wife who tells us that he would freak her out. She says that on some occasions his skin would actually get darker, but that just sounds bizarre to me. Unless during his alter his brain is releasing something that affects pigmentation maybe? I don't know. Weird. Basically this was just a profile piece and Herschel seems to be doing okay. And now I'm going to be wondering about that skin thing.
In The Shot tonight, Buster is back! We remember Buster, right? Beer-drinking 101-year-old marathon runner. Or is he? It seems "fibber" might be the latest thing that gets put on Buster's resume because the good people of Guinness World Records have discovered that Buster here is a spry 94-year-old. "Oh, Buster, say it ain't so," says Erica Hill. Actually, he does say it ain't so and really, who's going to argue with Fidel Castro's doppelganger? Or maybe it's the other way around. Anyhoo, Anderson doesn't have Buster's back. Such a cynic. This world is hard on believers. B-
David Mattingly then joins us live and informs us the mothers are still pretty ticked. In a taped piece that follows, David goes into the compound to talk to the women, but when it comes to getting clear ages out of them, things get a little weird. He asks one woman how old she was when she got married and then how old she is now, and it's fairly apparent she's doing some sort of calculation in her head before answering. Anderson Cooper wonders how deceptive the women are being. Obviously David can't say for sure, though he notes a history of deception regarding outsiders.
Moving on to a Dan Simon piece on polygamists north of the border, British Columbia to be exact. Man, they're everywhere! So anyway, Dan talks to this dude that was excommunicated from Warren Jeffs' church and living in a community split between loyalty to Jeffs and loyalty to excommunicated dude (who is a bit a jerk, I must say). But all this child and parent-separating going on in Texas has caused them all to come together in their opposition to the raid. Yay for unity? Sigh. Also? Dan rides a horse.
Next up, here come da Pope! Did you know his head holiness (or whatever) was coming to these here united states? Did you care? I gotta say, I'm pretty underwhelmed about the whole thing. When John Paul came I sort of had an interest, but this guy? Eh. At this point you've probably gathered that I'm not Catholic, but the religion has always been at least a peripheral part of my life because of all my Catholic family and friends. Hell, my father studied to be a priest, but decided it wasn't for him (and my existence is grateful for that decision). My grandma used to give directions based on parish locations and when I was a kid I even took communion once (which I learned afterwards was a no no). So I think I have the Catholic cred to say, "The Pope's coming? Meh."
Of course, the buzz related to the visit is all about what the Pope is going to say about the sex abuse scandal. CNNer John Allen, who joins us live, got to ask him a question about that in a highly stage-managed "press conference" and the Pope replied about how ashamed he was and blah blah blah. Not good enough. By the way, the back-to-back coverage of the FLDS and Pope stories reminded me of Bill Maher's New Rules from last week (he compares them). I have a love/hate relationship with Bill and I'm not sure I agree with him on this one, but it's definitely worth a watch. The point I'm talking about starts about halfway in, and it's Maher, so the whole thing is NSFW.
Transitioning now to an Anderson piece that squishes Barack Obama's life down to three cable news segments. I'm not going to really knock this because I know there's plenty of people out there who don't know the candidates, but man, at this point I think I know more about Obama than some of my friends. Anyhoo, here we go, in possibly not exact chronological order: Born in Hawaii to a Kenyan father and white mother, father was absentee, mother remarried an Indonesian, moved to Jakarta, saw poverty, got teased, went to prep school back in Hawaii, tried drugs to numb identify confusion, went to college, started going by Barack as opposed to Barry, was an underachiever, mother kicked his butt into gear, got a job trying to help the community, got frustrated, went to Harvard law, met Michelle, worked for civil rights law firm, married Michelle, joined Wright's church, won Illinois state senate seat, ran for Congress, lost, ran for senate...and this is where I have to pause the longest run-on sentence ever.
The guy in the piece (Obama expert?) says the following: "His broad support in the U.S. Senate race in 2004 was unheard of in Illinois politics for a black politician. He won in white areas of Illinois that no -- that black people even today don't venture into." Um, perhaps it would be pertinent to note that his opponent was Alan Keyes, who by most accounts is frickin insane! I mean, hello! That race should have been, and was, a total cake walk. Obama deserves praise for a lot of things, but winning that election in a landslide really isn't one of them. "Barack Obama: This is Your Life" ends with him keeping a low profile in the senate his first year and then running for president. As they say kids, the rest is history. Also, for the trivia buffs out there, at one point they play music that is totally the same thing that played in "Fahrenheit 9-11" when the opening credits rolled.
On now to a Sanjay Gupta piece on football player Herschel Walker, who suffers from dissociative identity disorder. This used to be known as multiple personality disorder, but they changed the name because sufferers have personality fragments that prevent them from forming one personality, not fully formed multiple personalities. Anyway, we get the requisite "Sybil" clip and also meet Herschel's ex-wife who tells us that he would freak her out. She says that on some occasions his skin would actually get darker, but that just sounds bizarre to me. Unless during his alter his brain is releasing something that affects pigmentation maybe? I don't know. Weird. Basically this was just a profile piece and Herschel seems to be doing okay. And now I'm going to be wondering about that skin thing.
In The Shot tonight, Buster is back! We remember Buster, right? Beer-drinking 101-year-old marathon runner. Or is he? It seems "fibber" might be the latest thing that gets put on Buster's resume because the good people of Guinness World Records have discovered that Buster here is a spry 94-year-old. "Oh, Buster, say it ain't so," says Erica Hill. Actually, he does say it ain't so and really, who's going to argue with Fidel Castro's doppelganger? Or maybe it's the other way around. Anyhoo, Anderson doesn't have Buster's back. Such a cynic. This world is hard on believers. B-
posted by eliza at 12:47 AM
2 Comments:
To me, the two profiles just seemed like glorified book reports. Since both were based on books. Can't a news show give us something better than elementary school reports?
@anonymous--Ouch! I do partly agree with your point though. There was nothing in that profile of Barack Obama that I couldn't find out on my own fairly easily. That being said, most potential viewers aren't going to do that kind of research, so I can see the benefits of the piece.
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