Author: photog

SODT

photog 2 Comments Current Events, Humor, Trump , , ,

Therapist – So let’s welcome our new friend Scott Pelley and start by going around the circle and introduce ourselves.

Acosta – Hi I’m Jim and I’ve hated Trump for about ten years.

Pelley – Hi Jim

Moran – Hi I’m Terry and I hate all haters!

Pelley – Hi Terry.

Lemon – I’m Don and I’ve hated Trump since I was a kid and saw what kinds of atrocious ties he wore.

Pelley – Hi Don.

Reid – I’m Joy and I’ve hated Trump from the womb.

Pelley – Hi Joy.

Cuomo – Hi I’m Chris and I don’t hate anyone.  I’m just looking for a new gig.  Scott, what’s available at CBS.

Pelley – Scoundrel!

Therapist – So who has had a breakthrough this week?

Lemon – Me, me, pick me!

Therapist – Okay Don what would you like to share?

Lemon – Well, it came to me last night that in just two years this whole nightmare will end and the world will go back to the way it was in 2015 and I’ll be rich, famous and sassy again.

Therapist – Why do you think that?

Lemon – Well, obviously Donald Trump will be out of office and the Democrats will be in charge again and they will reverse all of Trump’s damage and restore all of us to the glamour and wealth that we enjoyed under Barack Obama.

Therapist – Does anyone else believe that?

(Everyone’s hands go up immediately)

Therapist – (rubbing his face with both hands) I see we still have a lot of work to do here.  As much as you feel that Donald Trump is the root of all your problems you must realize that this is a very different world from 2016.  Things have moved on.  Your industry has changed.  The internet has disrupted journalism permanently.

Reid – That’s a lie!  MS-NBC will be begging to get me back.  I’ll have a ten million dollar annual and I’ll have a bigger office than Maddow that closet racist!

Cuomo – Don’t you mean MS NOW?  And why would they want you back after what you’ve been saying about them?

Reid – Shut your face Chris, you always were a closet racist.  All of you are closet racists, even you Lemon!

Lemon – Girlfriend, have you gone crazy?  We can’t start attacking each other.  That’s what Trump wants.

Reid – Oh shut up.  I’m sick and tired of blogging on my sub-stack.  Nobody reads the damn things and so far, this month I’ve made eleven dollars and forty-two cents in subscriptions.  (breaks down crying) I want my old life back.   WAAAAAAAAAH!

Therapist – Please Joy, don’t slip into that mode of thought.  We mustn’t dwell on the past.  We must embrace the future and new opportunities.

Pelley – He’s right Joy.  We all have a bright future.  We don’t need MS-NBC or CBS.  We’re smart and we’re strong.  We have skills and are only waiting for the right opportunity to put them to work.  Listen, all of you, I’ve decided that it’s time to start something big.  Why, with all the talent that’s gathered right here we could set the journalism world on fire.  Why, Jim and Terry could be our Washington correspondents.  Don and Chris could handle the entertainment desk and Joy you handle the social justice watch while I can be the executive producer.

Cuomo – What kind of venture capital can you put together?  Can you cover a two year burn through?

Pelley – I was hoping we could all cover our own expenses until it got up and running.

(Everyone including the therapist start laughing maniacally and cross over into tears.)

Therapist – Scott, thanks for that moment of levity.  It’s really important to keep a sense of humor during depression.

Pelley – But I wasn’t kidding!

Therapist – Well then, you’re not ready for this group yet.  SODT stands for “Survivors of Donald Trump” and by definition, you can’t be completely delusional and say things like that.  Why don’t you try hanging out with Kamala until the crazy wears off.  Close the door on the way out, will you?

Snott Smelley – Journalist

photog 4 Comments Current Events, Humor

Good evening Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea.  And it goes without saying (although I will say it) good evening too to Ms. America and to all the pronouns that represent the gorgeous mosaic that is America in 2026.

I come to you tonight, not on the Sunday, 8pm 60 Minutes program where I belong but from my “man cave” in the basement of my home.  I have followed various YouTube videos and purchased the hardware and materials to assemble my very own television studio.  I will “upload” this video to YouTube, as the kids say, and get my story out to the world.  You might think that the recent interview with the New York Times would have set the record straight about the outrageous, fascistic and catastrophic events going on at CBS but I sensed that just as at CBS, the New York Times is now also being censored by the Trump administration and I must get the word out before the thought police have a chance to shut down all dissent.

And because I was trained in the Socratic Method in journalism school, I will structure this podcast as an interview between me and myself.  For the sake of clarity, whenever I am asking the questions as the interviewer, I will wear a hat with the letter J on it to show I am the journalist.  And when I am answering the questions, I will wear a hat with the letter S that stands for “source” and also Snott since that is my name.  Here we go.

J – Thank you, intrepid whistleblower for daring to blow the whistle on Donald Trump, The Ellisons and Bari Weiss while they lay waste to a once magnificent journalistic miracle, 60 Minutes.

S – Thank you for acknowledging my bravery and for building this state-of-the-art studio on such short notice.

J – What was the hardest part of speaking truth to power during your harrowing ordeal with those destroyers of free speech and haters of freedom of the press.

S – I would say that the worst of it was not being allowed to document my firing for an upcoming segment of 60 Minutes.  I would say off the top of my head that truth dies in darkness and unless I’m allowed to produce a fourteen-part series that covers every facet of the coup currently being perpetrated against this land of liberty I can’t see the world surviving for more than a few more weeks.

J – Will you make this series available to the American public.

S – I’m glad you asked that question journalist.  At the bottom of this video there will be a post office address.  If you send me a check for $1,400, you will receive a full set of 14 DVDs (or VHS tapes).  Or you can send $200 for each episode separately but that will be less economical.

J – That seems like a very fair price to pay.

S – Yes journalist, because what they will be paying for is freedom.  And who can put a price on freedom.  Although I guess that price is $1,400.

J – Thank you Mr. Whistleblower and good night, America and good luck.

The Green Hills of Earth (1951) by Robert A Heinlein – A Science Fiction Book Discussion

photog 5 Comments Book Reviews, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Book Reviews , , , ,

Well, I’ve been having so much fun with the recent science fiction discussions I thought I’d reminisce about the science fiction stories that had the biggest effect on me when I was first starting out reading science fiction.  And the one that really impressed me the most early on was Heinlein’s short story collection “The Green Hills of Earth.”

I think it was my introduction to his “Future History” stories.  And I remember that reading these stories was different from anything else I had read up to this point.  With the space opera stories even as a child I could sense that there was a lot of handwaving going on to justify all the faster than light travel, humanoid aliens and super-duper energy weapons and shields that somehow translated 19th century naval exploration and warfare into interstellar adventure.

His stories attempted to describe the nuts and bolts of building space stations and lunar colonies based on the best information that existed at the time.  Some of the stories (about Mars and Venus) were highly inaccurate.  But the stories about the Moon are still quite close to what could and maybe will be accomplished.  In that vein I think the story that exemplifies Heinlein’s ability to make believable his picture of a lunar human environment is “Gentlemen, Be Seated!”  And the plot and characters are both so skillfully sketched that disbelief is completely suspended right through to the end.

Now some of the stories aren’t that believable.  “—We Also Walk Dogs” involves a very clever story about a consulting business that accepts the assignment of inventing artificial gravity in order to accommodate aliens from worlds that have both higher and lower gravity than Earth during a conference on Earth.  Basically, they bribe a brilliant physicist to accomplish this “simple” task by stealing a museum artifact that he covets.  As I said, it’s a ridiculous premise but Heinlein portrays the Machiavellian machinations of this seemingly unlimited consulting firm very skillfully and with great gusto.  So that even a story as unbelievable as this one is enjoyed on its own terms.

And that’s the thing with most of these stories.  The writing is so skillful that the reader never feels let down by the quality of the stories.  The characters are interesting and for the most part believable.  The plots are clever and as I said in many cases plausible.  And at the time this was far from typical in the stories that could be found on the science fiction shelf in the library or book store.

Here’s a list of the stories that were in that collection.  See if any are or were favorites of yours.

“Delilah and the Space Rigger” (1949; originally published in Blue Book)

“Space Jockey” (1947; originally published in The Saturday Evening Post)

“The Long Watch” (1949; originally published in The American Legion Magazine)

“Gentlemen, Be Seated!” (1948; originally published in Argosy Magazine)

“The Black Pits of Luna” (1948; originally published in The Saturday Evening Post)

“It’s Great to Be Back!” (1947; originally published in The Saturday Evening Post)

“—We Also Walk Dogs” (1941; originally published in Astounding Science Fiction)

“Ordeal in Space” (1948; originally published in Town & Country)

“The Green Hills of Earth” (1947; originally published in The Saturday Evening Post)

“Logic of Empire” (1941; originally published in Astounding Science Fiction)