Could We Be Getting "Dave"-ed by the Trump Administration?

Dave was a quirky little rom/political-com that came out in 1993.  The President is in a coma and not expected to live, so the President's staff enlist the aid of an actor (Kevin Kline) who happens to look just like him to impersonate the President until they can make arrangements.  Hijinks ensue.

The interesting thing to think about is if it could actually happen with Trump.  People were relentless with President Obama, following him whenever he left The White House to see whom he would fist bump or what cute babies he would kiss but we always knew where he was and what he was doing at just about any given time.  The same goes for just about every president in modern history.

Trump is different, though.  He has already shown that he is a rally guy.  He is a Twitter guy.  He is not much for press conferences.  He has already said that he is going to split his time between New York and Washington D.C. What does this mean?  This is pure speculation.  There may come a day when we get "Dave"-ed.

It is a hard thing to think about but what if something should (goodness forbid) happen to Trump or if he should just want to disappear for a few days, weeks, months?  He has been good at eluding the press already and maybe,, just maybe, we are being set up for something.  It seems that he is conditioning us for some sort of departure by making Twitter his primary form of communication.

The Trump persona lends itself to imitation just by virtue of how visually LOUD it is.  Dictators (not saying that he is one) are prone to creating loud public personas so that they can hide whenever they want.  Saddam Hussein with his mustache and look at Castro, with his signature beard?  They and many more were known to have body doubles.  What is to stop Trump from slapping a blond wig on someone and letting a teenager take over his Twitter account as he steps out? Or worse yet, for his staff to do the same?

Imagine four years of body doubles with wigs being shuffled in and out of buildings and Tweets from his real account saying everything is fine.    How many times can they just show him getting on a plane and saying he is in NY  when they ask in D.C. and vice versa?

Pence and Priebus are pretty much running things anyway.  In fact, the growing consensus is that Trump seems to think that his role would be more ceremonial and that they would do all the hard work.  This is pure speculation, but we could be looking at a president who just pops up for public events or has a body double zip in and out and, goodness forbid something happens to him, could be easily replaced.  Something to think about.

A Year From Now.

Over the desk here, there is a sign that says "A year from now, you will wish you had started today."  We were considering getting a "Hang in there!" cat, but in the scheme of things this seemed a bit more motivational.  In any event, we wonder what Trump will be hanging over the Resolute Desk in the Oval office.  No it was not a dream and yes he did win.

It goes without saying that the world is in a bit of an uproar.  The...entire...WORLD.   Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany even offered her remarks about the situation.  Let's not think about the irony of Germany lecturing the U.S. about leaders and have the (albeit only recently acquired) standing to do so.

Today's blog post is going to be short.  We are going to make a promise or rather an assertion?  Who knows.  In any event, we are going to give a timeline.  It is well accepted that a president's most effective time is the first 100 days of presidency.  We are going to give him an entire year.

First, let's escape some trappings before we begin.  We are not journalists.  We are concerned citizens with, for the time being, protection of the First Amendment.  Consider this entire blog editorial.

Second, in that same vein, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are removed from the table.  Pres. Obama came into office with a down economy and a country at war and leaves a somewhat peaceful and rebounding economy,  We have even started taking pictures of gas prices.  But that being said, we want it noted.  See, the tendency now is for things to get a little fuzzy.  We are talking about a man who said he was going to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it.  Given the things that he has said over the course of his campaign, it is likely that several things would go wrong with his rather simplistic plan. Things like, it won't get built at all for which he would blame Obama.  It gets built but Mexico does not pay and the American tax payer ends up footing the bill.  Whatever happens, I could actually see him saying "What wall?"

He will have the presidency, both houses of congress, and the Supreme Court so what has happened is there is NOTHING stopping him from doing what he wants and by that same token, he can't blame others when it doesn't happen.

Third, and this is key.  The clock starts NOW! or rather for us, two days ago.  We are still reeling from the results of the election, but things are already starting to come in.  Chris Christie, as of this writing is on hold as part of his transition team because he is facing legal troubles of his own.  Trump himself is due in court in two weeks over allegations of his own.  We will see how that turns out.  A lot of people are saying that he should not be held accountable until he is sworn in and that, is false.  The world is reacting to the news that he will take the seat.  Things are taking shape now.  There are long lists of things I could say are happening, but I do not have the time and frankly after the last few days, we are exhausted.

Things are going to change in the next 363 days possibly sooner. We wanted to start talking about it now.  We wanted to begin processing.  The sooner the better because a year from now, we'll have wished we had started today.

Quid pro...Where is the quo? The Troubling Clinton Money Situation and Stuff.

Something for something, that is what Quid Pro Quo means.

So it was revealed that Bill Clinton got upwards of 66 million dollars in speaking fees from people who were approached on behalf of the Clinton foundation by Teneo.
I read a lot of the articles but pretty much stopped when they said something to effect of "Tax records show that all but about $100,000.00 was returned to Teneo" and that Chelsea Clinton fired off emails on her fathers behalf when she found out about the situation (for which she was called a "spoiled brat")  and said that her father would be appalled when he found out.
They did find out what was going on.  How?  They had an internal fraud investigator hired to make sure that everything they were doing was legal.  So the gist of this story is that in 2011 a company that the Clintons (specifically Bill) was close to, solicited funds for the The Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative.  Teneo, while raising money for them approached them about for profit initiatives without their knowledge or approval. When Chelsea Clinton discovered this after an internal audit, they severed ties....
The right is trying VERY HARD to link this to Hillary Clinton.  The right wants you to believe that Hillary Clinton and her crooked cronies sat down at the kitchen table, rolled up their sleeves and worked late into the night over pots of coffee and piles of cash when in reality it was just a bunch of people trying to capitalize off of their fame.

The problem is the Quo.
Imagine someone paid you $66 million. The right is struggling and I stress STRUGGLING to find what these people got for their money.  There are ifs and maybes, but no "quo"  there is nothing that they can point to that shows any benefit for those contributing.  Show me the quo.
Ron Fornier has been saying "follow the money" show me the Ferrari's and the mansions.  Show me the private jet (Bill Clinton very famously has to hitch rides on other people's jets).
Forget the fact that he gave the money back when he found out what was going on.  Think about the fact that the logic is that he took this money on behalf of an organization that is doing a lot of good work in the world and got nothing for their money.
The devil is in the speculation.  They lead you just to the edge of a conclusion, just to edge of feeling that something is wrong.  They must be doing something horrendous with the money (even though they did not keep it) but we can figure out what it is.

Wiki leaks did not conduct an investigation.  They merely found out about the investigations that the Clintons conducted on themselves.  They are revealing problems that the Clintons discovered internally and solved years ago.

Things that must be happening right now based on Trump's weekend

It has been a wild political weekend to say the least.  There were the debates of course and well, we all know about the video.  Oh my goodness, the video.

Now is the time that we look forward, though.  Trump apologized and that is the end of it, right?  So how are we this fine Monday morning?  There are so many things that must be going on right now, as we speak, based on this weekend's events.

Somewhere, let's be honest, there is a young girl lying flat on her back doing goodness knows what in a porn parody of this whole election.

Somewhere, there is an intern, combing through hours and hours of tapes basically with his or her eyes taped open so that they can find something else as damaging.

Somewhere, there is someone putting together a lot of cash to pay off the owner of the tapes perhaps, to keep them quiet.

Somewhere, there is someone putting together a lot of cash to pay off the owner of the tapes, perhaps, to make them public.

Somewhere, there are people who are constructing elaborate arguments as to why Trump is still viable, spinning his debate performance, and conspicuously avoiding eye contact with their mothers, sisters, and daughters.

All of this is happening right here in America,

The Bots Have Taken Over!

I am going to do something that I normally would not.  I am going to recommend that you go to Donald Trump's facebook page.  Or go to his Twitter feed.  Pick a post, any post.  Then I want you to look at the comments down beneath that post.
I read a lot of articles about politics and lately a lot of articles about the presidential candidates.  There is something that is common to both their sites and more specifically the comments underneath.  Take a look and see if you notice it.
I will go ahead and tell you. The bots have taken over.  Most of them are pro-Trump and if you look at the names and locations there are some very interesting trends.
First, there is the "Only Hillary..." bot.  This is a person who has cut an pasted some speech that someone somewhere wrote outlining a bunch of things that "only Hillary" has done.  So long is this litany of things that few spend the time to research all or any of the things that only Hillary has done.  There is then a mix of people who try in response or who agree with it.  It is just long enough to convey some idea of intelligent research and just short enough to be a sound bite.
Second there is the person who states their agency and attempts to establish that they belong to a group that is known to be anti-Trump and that they have come to their senses and now support Trump for some reason.  I am gay and I support Trump because... I am black and I support Trump because...I am a veteran and I support Trump because...
Third there is just the hater.  The hater just uses a bunch of words...bad and stuff. insults...bad.  The hater has a plethora of Hillary rhymes (Killery, Hitlery, etc.)
Fourth, there is my favorite the hater, denier.  This is a person who is relatively new and bases their replies on the current polls.  If Hillary is up in the polls, then the polls are fake and the game is rigged.  If she is down in the polls it is just a show of how the polls are rigged but the massive number of Trump supporters are overwhelming!
The most interesting thing that we see now is that they are alone.  Really.  When you look and I mean really look, it has become a lot like those old AOL chat rooms where all the real people eventually leave and you just have bots talking to bots. 
The common thread, especially when it comes to CNN is something like the hater comments.  The first thing they say is that no one reads this particular page, article, etc. not recognizing the irony of posting on an article or site that thousands of people are reading.
This leads to a lot of other questions.  The biggest being, what impact is this having?  How many people in middle America are on Twitter and Facebook?  How many believe what they see versus what they read, or what they see, or what they are told?
As of this writing, Hillary Clinton is ahead in the polls and by all accounts rising, but I am surprised at the number of people saying that she is not. What do you believe?

We can be found on Twitter at @writlargepodcst

This ad is why Black People Support Hillary and here is a hint, it is not the ad itself...

This ad is powerful and not for what it says, but for the fallout and the comments.  The most powerful result of this ad is what people are saying about it. See a lot of the reaction is from white people and that is not necessarily a bad thing.
When I first saw this ad on Facebook, I thought it was very compelling and it made me think.  Then, I looked at the comments underneath.   The range is spectacular.  The vast majority of them were what blacks see on a regular basis. 
First, there are those who change the subject to attempt to mitigate its power. There are comments about her emails, Benghazi, the usual.
Second, there are those who inform blacks that Hillary is only using them.
Third, there are those who try to light things up by saying things like "these people need to go back where they came from..."  and they stop just shy of saying anything related to color.
The first two camps have a singular goal, no matter how benign it seems on the surface.  The goal of one and two are to remove agency from the black population.  It boils down to people saying to black people that they do not know what it means to be black.  It is a rhetoric that tells blacks their experience is invalid and "Don't let Hillary Clinton tell you that you can think for yourself, let us tell you that she is trying to control you so that you will vote for Trump."
The third camp is a group that ties themselves in knots trying to say this is all about race while not using terms like African American and black or "nigger".  This is the same group that uses terms like monkey to describe our current president and have spent the past 8 years saying that he was a Muslim born in Kenya.
The interesting thing is the fourth group.  I read through all of those comments and I found a voice that was missing was ...wait for it... the voice of many black people.  This ad is going to circulate.  It is going to gain ground but it is not going to circulate in the places frequented by people in those first three groups. 
It is like when Trump went to those huge rallies and spoke to predominantly white crowds to talk about what he had to offer black people.  Or the way he brings out Omarosa et al to talk to us about how sensitive he is to the plight of the black man!
So, people can attack the ad and swamp the comments section, but the problem is and always will be that you are not talking to the people you think you are talking to. You are preaching to the choir.  I read the comments because I have an interest in this, but for the most part, it is a bunch of people talking to themselves.

Kim What's-her-name is a hero!

Kim Kardashian is a hero.  We all know that she was robbed and that Kanye West had to abruptly leave a concert to rush to her side.  It was amazing and much like the rest of their lives, like something out of a b movie.
When I say she is a hero, I mean that she is a hero to the world for going through that ordeal and showing us who we are.  See, the majority of the fallout came in the form ridicule and derision from the internet because 9 or 10 million dollars worth of stuff was stolen.

The new face of social justice

I watched as people piled on with comment after comment with little care for a human being who had a gun pointed at her.  Everyone who knows me knows that I read articles for the facts and the comments below for a feel about how the nation or the world deals with things and this time the interwebs did not let me down.
The Kardashians overall put us in a strange place in our zeitgeist.  Women should be free to show off their bodies, except the Kardashians.  Women can sleep with whomever they want, except the Kardashians. They are the American royalty that we love to hate.
I subscribe to elite sites like Huffington Post, CNN, and NPR.  Imagine my surprise when I saw oh so much Kardashian related news showing up in my feed.  Truth be told I know very little about  either them Kanye except what could be gleaned from cultural osmosis.  I could not pick any one of them out of a police line up but if I saw one walking down the street, I would know them by the throngs of people following them to take pictures, talk to them, and then say they hate them.
She is a hero, not for surviving the incident.  She is a hero for bringing to the surface, once again, what is wrong with the world.  We do so often lose our humanity in small ways, but this one is different.
The Kardashians exist, in all ways, in their own little world.  We love them because it is ok to hate them and that is fascinating.
Trolls are going to come out.  It is inevitable. When Patton Oswald lost his wife earlier this year, so many people offered condolences and the vast majority of people in the cyber world were horrified and saddened.  Still there was a contingent who just had to be heard and they did not care how they were heard, just that they were heard. Whatever the discussion, there was always one or two people who would take the opportunity to say the most horrible, disgusting, and insensitive things to Patton Oswald.
This is not that.   What we have here is a group feed.  People seemed to take one of three positions.  First and most abundant, there were the people who were just so angry that this was even in their feed.  They hated that major news organizations were even reporting on it.  The Kardashians had fallen so far down their well of care that they were irritated by their push into their world.
Then there were the people who were sensitive to the whole thing and were defending and praying or Kim and her family.  Many took it a step further and went on to admonish those who were picking on her .
By far, the majority read this story and said, "Fuck her. She's rich.  She shouldn't have been showing off"  They all came out of the woodwork and were made bolder by the fact that huge crowds were piling on and the frenzy ensued.  Nearly an entire nation indifferent or angry at the threatening of a woman's life. 
Rosa Parks...MLK... JFK... Kim Kardashian? 
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How Mika Brzezinski Helped Me Understand Racism.

I like politics and though I am not a huge fan of Morning Joe, I like listening to their daily podcast and their banter.  Some days it is pretty entertaining.  Some days, they teach you a little something.  A few days ago, Mika Brzezinski of Morning Joe filled in some of the blanks about Keith Scott, the man shot and killed by police in Charlotte two weeks ago sparking riots there that went on for days.
Mika reported that according to court papers filed a year ago by his wife, Mrs. Scott applied for a restraining order against him alleging that he had a gun and that he was threatening to kill his family with it.  Scott's lawyer stated that whether or not Keith Scott had a gun should have no bearing on whether or not the shooting was justified.
Mika said that she doesn't think you can discount that...
One of her co-hosts stepped up and said that it had nothing to do with the police shooting though.
This is where it gets a little strange, to me at least.  Mika goes on to bring up the fact that his wife was saying, on the video she was shooting, "Keith don't do it."  Which is true.  But she is also telling the police not to shoot and that [in her assertion] "He's unarmed!"  Mika leaves this part out.
The co host says, "that is a big jump from..."
and he is interrupted by Mika and Joe Scarborough almost instantaneously, each essentially saying that Scott's background is relevant to the shooting.
Joe ups the ante by asking "What if the black cop's wife had written that about him?"   Scarborough claims that if the cop had a history of violence that would have come out then he would have been skewered and the Left or Liberals would have rejoiced.
Mika says that it would have "sealed the deal for them [the cops]."

Let's take a moment, shall we?
I think the first thing that has to be said is that there is respect for cops by and large, though it may not seem like it.  The reason it does not seem like it is that people are angry right now.  I am often annoyed by the police, but I have no ill will towards the vast majority of them. (This is the disclaimer that every person who says something negative about any police officer anywhere must give lest they be labeled a cop hater.)

Now that that's out of the way, let's look at the thing that pissed me off about the exchange.  There are some things that we have to get straight right off the bat.  The first being the over arching assertion that cops and criminals are on equal footing.  They are not.  A criminal is  criminal and not necessarily held to any code of ethics whereas the officer is a duly appointed law enforcement officer to whom we as a community issue a badge, gun, taser, etc.

The co-host (Willie Geist? [I am unsure because I listen to the podcast, I do not watch the show and it is hard to tell voices]) was absolutely right.  Keith Scott's background is irrelevant for one major reason, the cops were not there to get him.  They were there to serve a warrant on someone else apparently.  One officer claims to have seen Scott in his car with a gun and a joint and then he and his partner went to get their vests and arrest him.  There are things that do not match up from there but at this point it would be conjecture on my part.

The point is that they have no way of knowing anything about his past.  His wife obviously had forgiven him or whatever occurred because she was right there begging, pleading, and at times ordering the police not to shoot him and saying that he has a TBI (traumatic brain injury).  His past is not the issue.  The debate is about whether in that moment, for that instance, was he a danger to himself and to others.  If someone says yes, I will beg to differ, but what Mika and Joe and many others are not getting about this situation and many others is what is at the core of why there are riots etc.

Blacks obviously do not have the privilege that whites do in this instance and instances like this.  Yes, he was shot by a black cop and yes it can still be construed as racism because more often than not white people do not face the same scrutiny that blacks do by any race of cop.  The issue is not who is doing the perceiving, the issue is that the perception exists and the narrative becomes "hey, there is a black guy who has not done anything, let's pull him over. stop him, run his license, frisk him, whatever."  Let's get him or her in custody, and we'll figure out what they did after the fact.  In fact, a number of the encounters, the encounters themselves bring charges to the individual.  It is odd to think of the number of men and women who are tackled to the ground screaming and thinking, "what did I do?"

During the exchange on Morning Joe, they said that there were things that they just did not know yet and that the investigation was ongoing and that it was good to have as much information as possible.  The problem is that she did not even know the things that we already know.  There was no cursory study of the incident or keeping up with the story as it unfolded.  She DID know that Scott's wife had once filed charges against him.  She knew all the parts of the video where the wife was saying "Don't do it." but did not know the rest.

This whole thing has put things in perspective.  Blacks have done something.  We just have to figure out what it is.

We are going to be writing a lot more about a lot of issues.  We are going to get a lot deeper and try to clarify some issues and get more voices out there.  Slowly but surely...
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The Ghosts of Black Men Passed...

We should start from a space of relative honesty about what is going on. It is less than 48 hours after the death of Philando Castile and less than 72 hours after the death of Alton Sterling. We have heard from a lot of people on the issue of shooting young black men.  Have we noticed that the one group that we have not heard from about this issue?  Young black men.

 When this type  of thing was rare (or at least not as often caught on tape, but I will get into that in a moment) the wavelengths were a lot wider.  It would take a solid three or four days to come up with video of the incident.  A week to argue and debate, then several months for the trials of the police and blah blah blah.  It took us years to get through Rodney King.  The issue is not new, the cameras are.

Let's take a look at what happened with Alton Sterling.  Yes it was caught on tape by a bystander.  Oddly, both officers' body cameras fell off during the altercation.  Strange that.  Worse was that it was caught on film by the store's security cameras and we had to wait to see what that produced.  We needed more angles, of course.  Do we remember a time when something like that would not even be shown?
Less than 24 hours later, Phliando Castile's shooting was broadcast to thousands of people in near real time on Facebook.  If you happened to be a friend of his and on Facebook at that time, you could have seen the death of a human being...yay technology.

I am writing today because I wanted to talk about the voice of the black man and how that plays into the media today.  I am not a big believer in the vast media conspiracy on the left or the right.  I think that it is all a big popularity contest.

After the deaths of these two men, we began to say that the violence is not new, the cameras are.  When Rodney King got the shit beaten out of him on camera, many made the comment that it was really just another night for black man in LA it just so happened that someone had the forethought and an empty tape to start recording.

Right now I have a digital camera, two phones, each with cameras, and there is a camera on my laptop pointing at me as I write.  I think I am ready to go if anything happens.  Is this a good thing?  I like that we can document these things, but the only thing is that it gives more to argue about.

Remember the "wavelength" I talked about earlier?  Less than 72 hours away from witnessing the police murder a man on the street, we are in the dark part of that wave as it begins to tail off.  We have done what we can to tear down Alton Sterling...he was a convicted sex offender (the cops did not and COULD NOT have known that when they shot him NOR SHOULD IT HAVE BEEN AN ISSUE!).  Philando Castile worked at a school. He had a gun, but was licensed to have one and by all accounts told the officer that.  As well, he was shot for "reaching" even though the officer asked him for his license.

How do I know that we are at the tail end of the wavelength?  Because we are now talking about who is talking about what happened.  People are posting their regrets and we are talking about what they are wearing and where they are when they offer their thoughts and condolences.  The reverence with which we treat the passing of people has been whittled down to hashtags and frowny faces on fb posts.
Hillary Clinton's email hearings were yesterday and there were those who were, really, saying that she had something to do with these killings so that those hearings would be lost in the news cycle.
The major frustration for me are the voices who will be lost in the shuffle.  Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are going to say something.  Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are going to say something.  People are going to say that they should keep their mouths shut never once acknowledging that maybe we should not shoot these young men.

The point is a sad one, no one cared about these men aside from their families three days ago.  We do not talk about Trayvon Martin anymore and Zimmerman is a kind of hero, celebrated in some circles.  Eric Garner still can't breathe but his dying words are all over t-shirts.  We only care about these men in death.  They only have a voice for a short time and goodness knows that it is not while they are alive.
When I lived in SC, we were at the tail end of three day snow storm.  The power was out at my house and it was warming up during the day, so I went to the local Starbucks to charge my phone and laptop and check my email.  As the sun went down, I headed home. I was walking and stopped by three squad cars less than 100 feet from my house.  The cops blocked traffic, turned on their lights, and held me there in the middle of the street.  They told me that I was asking people for money.  I was not afraid of being shot that night.  I was unarmed. They seemed surprised that I had no warrants.  They also seemed surprised that I lived in a good neighborhood.  The next day, I went to city hall to complain.  They would not even listen to me.  I went to the police station to complain.  Even though they had enough officers to block traffic on a snowy, icy night, they apparently did not have the staff to talk to anyone about what those officers were doing.  Too bad I did not have a camera that night.

See, all the things that led to each of those men being shot are still going on right now.  Somewhere, there is a young man who has not done anything shaking in his shoes because a cop has him up against a wall and he doesn't know what to do. The problem is that no one will listen to him unless the cop shoots and someone has the wherewithal to record it and THAT person has enough friends on Facebook and Twitter to make it go viral, then and only then will that man/ boy have a voice and even then, only until they find out what he has done wrong.

WTF did I just see? #altonsterling

Yeah, I watched it.  Yeah, I was appalled.  The question is, what does it mean?
We have gone through the standard arc, but are we seeing the problem now?
See, every time this happens, we get faster and faster.
When Trayvon Martin was shot and killed, it took days to find out that he had been on his way to get high.
When Michael Brown was shot and killed, it took maybe a day to find out that he had just come back from taking some cigars from a bodega around the corner
When Eric Garner was choked to death, they said he was resisting and that he was illegally selling cigarettes.
John Crawford III, he was pointing a gun (bb gun) at people...kids!
Tamir Rice?  Same.
They were all asking for it.
Maybe...Just maybe we could look at these cases for what they are.  They are murders.  Alton Sterling was not a law abiding citizen (years ago).  From all reports, he was a sex offender who had a few other convictions under his belt.  The thing that we  like to gloss over is that was not what he was doing when the police came upon him.
He was selling CD's.  Someone told the police that he had pulled a gun on them.  We do not know who that person is.  The owner of the store he was in front of, said that he saw no fight and no gun.  Prior to the cops arriving, he was laughing and joking with the owner a mere moments before.
They pulled up and within moments, was dead, shot at point blank range ...in the back.
The whole thing was recorded.  Police have earned such a reputation that as soon as they show up, someone starts filming with one of the many cameras at their disposal.
Someone, somewhere is watching.
As good as it is that it is all being filmed, there is also the notion that it hit the web immediately.  We went straight past the "authorities" and wen straight to youtube.
Within moments, it was viral.
Within moments people started digging.
Within hours everyone knew everything they would ever know about Alton Sterling.
Within hours everyone knew everything they would ever want to know.
Is this justice?  Who knows.  It is 2016.  In this case and many like it, the case is simple.

The comparison cases are going to come out.  People will dig up cases from years ago where something similar had happened to a white person.
The zeitgeist will say that something should be done and that cops are corrupt.
The zeitgeist will say that people need to let the cops do their work.

What is going to happen next?
What more is there to know?

It is going to happen again and we are going to get better at it.  A black man is going to get gunned down and someone is going to get it on film and we will immediately begin to pick it apart and so on and so on and so on.

We will just keep adding to the list.
Yeah I watched it, but WTF did I just see?

We are living n interesting times.  If you do not think that we are, then you are not paying attention.

This is what is wrong with the world....

Why do we have so many problems in the world?    This morning, I engaged in a Facebook battle with
someone over the meme at the right.  The main reason being that I think that the picture and your reaction to it, says a lot about who you are as a person.
The problem with the world is that we often have an inability to empathize.  We can't think about what it is like to be in another persons shoes.  Now, though, it seems that we don't even want to.  The person with whom I was debating on Facebook was adamant that this meme was funny.  I contend it is not.

A child was pulled into the water by an alligator near a Disney resort a couple days ago.  What is funny about that?

When I first saw the meme, several things became clear on the screen and in my head.  I am going to go ahead and say that if you laughed at that meme, you are a horrible person.  I try to not be judgemental, but I think that I am on pretty safe ground when I say that laughing at the death of a toddler is a bad thing. No matter how much one wishes to justify it, it is purely bad.

The conversation did not go on long on Facebook, but long enough and enough platitudes were proffered to make me wonder about what is wrong with the world.  I do not think that we, as a society have any kind of baseline for behavior, for ethics, for right and wrong.  In a world where there is no right and wrong, there are no solutions.  Without right and wrong or even an establishing a baseline for reality, there are no solutions to anything.

Look at any major discussion that we have been forced as a nation to reckon with in the past few days.

 In the case of gun control, we cannot even decide whether or not there should BE gun control because the Constitution, if you conveniently remove the first clause in the sentence, says we can all have guns.

Should transgender people be able to use whatever restroom they like?  There is no gender!

Should a nation founded on religious tolerance close its borders to Muslims for fear we have a repeat of what happened in Orlando a few days ago?

Trump is the greatest. Trump is the worst.

It goes on and on and on and the range of those issues is based on years of argument and in many cases scholarly debate by great thinkers.  When we look at the Hegelian Dialectic, we are to suppose that a thesis is confronted by its antithesis and the two, through debate and logic, reach a synthesis.  This, I was promised by my college professor would lead onward toward a homogeneous perfection.  That is not happening though.  We are more divided than ever.

We are more divided than ever and that is in large part because we cannot empathize and there is no line.  Someone read the article, watched on the news, or wherever and saw that this tragedy had occurred.  This was likely one of the happiest days of this child's short life and it ended.  The last thing this child likely saw as he was dragged under the water were his parents and loved ones frantically rushing into the water, chasing him.  Volunteers, helicopters, rescue workers went to work trying to find him with every hope that he would found alive.  Meanwhile, someone else was setting to work to make a meme.

We should be able to say that there is nothing funny about this.  We can make jokes about whatever, but we should be able to, without a doubt, say that there is NOTHING funny about this.  We should be allowed to have a dark sense of humor about all sorts of things, even hypothetical dead babies. This is not some story about the color of a dress or the solution to some math problem.  There are rarely absolute rights and absolute wrongs. This should be our line in the sand.  If you laughed at the meme above, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Rest in Peace, Lane Graves

How to fund a podcast: Step 1

I wanted this to be a "How did this get made: Podcast Edition but it really very quickly became a really, how did this get made?
There are so very few things that you need to form a podcast, it seems.Mainly it is a microphone, a computer and something to say. Podcasts are the HAM radio of the new milinium.  We all have things to say and whether or not you say them may often depend on the platform you have and your will.  If you can read this, you are almost there.
When we thought up this page and the accompanying twitter account (follow us on @thep_c_d__g on twitter or on facebook at The Podcast Drinking Game,) we looked for a gimmick, but then we settled on just saying what we wanted to say.  These are the things that podcasts are about. Many of them are comprised of the same kind of conversations that you overhear people having in bars and so on, but who do you want to listen and why?
The Wheel of Hate and Vitriol
We did some studies (mainly drunken listening to podcasts, but they were somewhat scientific)  The vast majority of podcasts are critical.  They seek to either reinforce a thought that is out there already or refute it.  A lot of people out there do not feel like they are being heard.  How often have you heard yourself yelling at a podcast through your phone or other listening device.  I tend to stop them, fume over what was said, then continue.  The interesting thing is that what tends to top the charts and get the ratings are just people being mad.
There are some people who should not be allowed on the internet.  Can we say that?  Take Patton Oswalt.  I love him to death and he is a brilliant comedian.  Recently, he got involved in a kerfuffle on Twitter about the new Ghostbusters movie.  I can tell already that I am going to hate it.  He said that it should be given a chance and should not be judged by the trailers.  I think the premise overall is problematic, but so be it.
The problem comes in the fact that there are people out there who want to get noticed.  Coming to Patton (we are in my head, on a first name basis) with a logical, sane, and cordial argument will not get you noticed.  Noooooo.... Some douche had to bring up his recently deceased wife.  Was this a horrible thing to do?  YES.  Did it get written about and shift the conversation from the actual thing to these disgusting morons? YES!  Did said morons get what they wanted? YES!
To pull this all together, there are podcasts out there that I hate!  There area uninformed people with squeaky voices who rant on and on and on and on about anything and everything.  Your first goal is to figure out where you on that Wheel of Hate and Vitriol..

Why Hodor is the best written character almost ever: Game of Thrones Spoiler!

Spoiler Alert!!!
That being said, episode 5 season 6 of Game of Thrones is quite possibly the best example of a well written "thing" ever.  Ok, so that may be a little over the top but it was damn good!

From the first time I ever saw Game of Thrones, I was fascinated by Hodor.  For those of you who do not know, he is the character who says nothing but "Hodor" for the duration of the show.  He is considered a big, simple minded, oaf who is assigned to protect and carry (literally) Bran Stark, the Stark child who was paralyzed after falling from the tower after seeing blah, blah, blah...

Hodor conveyed a lot of emotion, understanding, and gravity just by saying "hodor" over and over again, with no other line.  It was like the Smurf thing taken to its ultimate.  Let's think about it, though.  I am horrible to watch anything with because I am all about slipping in and out of the suspension of disbelief.  I admit it.  I will also admit that with everything else going, I nearly forgot Hodor even existed until a few episodes ago when we see Hodor aka Willis as a child hanging around the stables at Winterfell.  As soon as we see him though, I knew.  I knew that we were going to find out why he is called Hodor and why that is all he can say.

I have to say that six years is a long time to wait for the revelation of a gag, but it was worth it.  You never know how complex these things are until you have to write this stuff out, but long story short but they have to flee a cave and because Bran is a time traveling day dreaming douche, Hodor has to hold the door against the evil white walkers who are chasing them,  We assume he dies, holding the door, so that his friends can get away.

So what does this tell us.  Within the story, it tells us that Bran is a dick, #daydreamingdouche  Outside of the story it gives me hope.  In a meta way, we know that since they knew from the very first episode, that that was how Hodor was going to meet his end.  Six or seven years is a long LONG way to go for a gag (another admission, I have never and will probably never read the book and it probably said the whole thing, but...)

Th idea is that people thought about this and knew.  We know that they the writers know what is going to happen.  I was able to put pause on my suspension of disbelief and really think about the trajectory of the show.  It was a sense that I never got with Lost.  It was a sense that I got the opposite of with most movies.  Someone, somewhere, right now knows who is going to take the Iron Throne and that makes me happy,

The Campaign for Better Writing #drunkenrebuttal

30 years from now will we watch any of our favorite movies and feel like they hold up?  I have to say that I doubt it.  Writing is not very good lately...there I said it.   The average movie now is based on a series of events that are set in motion by someone some where doing something that they wouldn't do.  Thus you have a series of events that tumble into place based on silliness and, I believe this silliness needs to be written out.
For  a lot of action movies the goal is how to get the people to do the thing. Look at a movie like Pacific Rim.  We wanted to see a giant robot fight a giant monster.  Forget the fact there is no compelling reason whatsoever for them to do so.  People pointed out that there were remarkable holes in the plot like if you know when the Kaiju are going to arrive why not just have a giant laser cannon posted at the opening of the chasm that kills them as they come out? Still, we wanted to see two giant things punch each other in the middle of the city so we ignore that there is no real reason for them to do so.  The writers did a poor job of attempting to explain why world governments would forego the cheaper simpler and more effective solution in favor of building giant robots.
We see this with a lot of movies.  In any of the Transformer movies, why are they fighting in the middle of major cities?  Why does Godzilla go to San Francisco?  Who cares?  We want to see something big, hit something bigger.
Goodness forbid we try to add a story or some layering to the conflict.  Look at Dawn of Justice versus Captain America: Civil War.  The essential conflict in each story is the same; how does the world deal with the existence of super beings and villains?  How do the heroes themselves deal with being super?  How does the world deal with the destruction they leave in their wake and the lives they save?
Marvel loves its heroes and apparently hates everyone else whereas DC dives headlong into the inner conflict that its heroes feel.  Batman is tortured and jaded with a deep sense of right and wrong and no compunction about doling out justice after years of dealing with The Joker, Penguin, Bane etc.  Superman is dealing with the weight of being the most powerful being in the universe and essentially being seen as A god or THE God.  These are big questions.
Marvel on the other hand, goes the path that favors one of its biggest properties and just Hulks its way through these stories.  These movies ask you to suspend disbelief to a great extent.  In fact they encourage you to throw disbelief out the window...bury it.  We thought when our heroes were brought to life, they would take on a reality that would blow our minds, but when seen outside of the frame of  a 2D panel, they don't make a lot of sense and that should be addressed in the writing.
Thousands of people died in Man of Steel.  Of course Superman should think about that.  He sees himself as the protector of the world and has to look at the idea the deaths he is a part of matter.  He and Zod nearly destroyed a major metropolitan city.  Jobs are lost.  Lives are lost.  In the DC universe, they think about that.
In the Marvel universe, it s narrowed and anchored by personalizing it with one or two interactions.  In Captain America: Civil War, Tony Stark is confronted by a woman who has lost a son, the overall plot is driven by a grieving father's desire for revenge.  Just one.
Soldiers return from war having caused death and destruction on a level that people cannot imagine and that is in real life.  In each of these stories, the stakes are much MUCH higher yet, the thoughts about them are much less.  The Marvel universe focuses you on the action and not its consequences.  Let's be honest, I am not asking people to think about whether or not the henchmen have insurance or anything like that but just think about how in the Marvel universe, the extreme has become mundane.  Take a moment to think about the real life ramifications of the existence of Thor.   Religion, as we know it would collapse with the presence of a living god.
In Capt. America:Civil War, Tony Stark evacuates an airport so they can have a fight on the tarmac. How many people would miss connections?  Or could you imagine trying to get insurance to pay out on your car because Scarlet Witch threw it at someone?
In the Marvel universe, 9/11 sized and larger tragedies are happening every day and people barely give them a second thought.  I like that DC is looking at that and at least glancing off of it.  Overall, we need better writing.  Just take a moment to write a better movie and sew those plot holes shut.  It only takes a moment.

Why Batman v. Superman is better than all things Marvel #drunkenrebuttal

Here is the problem with the Marvel Universe.  It is not real.  (I KNOW...Let me finish.)
The difference is that DC has  at least one foot in the real world and NOTHING in the Marvel Universe.

With the Marvel Universe, we are talking about a giant green man, an ACTUAL NORSE GOD, etc. etc.  The worst part is that when you look at the timeline of the whole movie and television franchise, everyone in the world seems basically ok with everything they know and believe to be true falling apart in one fell swoop.

With the Marvel Universe, we realize that we are not alone in the universe, that there are aliens, gods, gamma powered men, and so on.  No one seems very upset about all of that though.  Think about it,  If you lived in a major city, most of which was destroyed by aliens and gods and super people wouldn't you grab the kids and move to Kansas?  In the Marvel Universe everything goes back to normal pretty quickly.

Also, lets look at that scene where Hydra goes after Nick Fury...In DOWNTOWN WASHINGTON D.C.!  No cops, no Army, no Air Force...all about a mile or so from the freakin' White House.
The TV shows don't even really touch on what has happened in any real way.  There are kids running around with Capt. America and Iron Man action figures and constantly showing up at things where the Avengers are.  If I EVER see Capt. America or Iron Man running through the streets I RUN!  The people in this universe stand around take pictures and then the next day...well, they go on about their business.

The DC Universe at least tackles that.  Yes, it is very emo, but that is how the world would be if there were aliens and psychotic clowns running around blowing things up.  The DC Universe has been criticized for being too death oriented but you can't get into a real life incarnation of these things without examining the real life consequences and reactions.

Also DC starts and I hope, keeps addressing the idea of a cohesive world where the heroes exist from movie to movie.  I hope they create viable excuses for Superman not being around to help when Gotham is on the verge of destruction.

There are plenty of reasons why none of the stuff in either of these worlds could not and would not happen. The DC Universe has at least one more toe in reality.

Haters are indeed going to hate...just not yet.

It did not take us long to go negative... Here goes.  First let's say that Cinemasins and the guys over there are our heroes.  I love the way they are able to skewer movies and videos, etc. etc. and do so with a little respect.  Podcasts (and blogs for that matter) are different.  They are the result of mass amateurization.  Anyone can do it!  Anyone can blog and anyone can say whatever they want to about whatever they want....

The PCDG has some bones to pick.  Petty grievances? Perhaps.  Nitpicking?  Sure.  All in good fun well...ok.

We exist on the idea that those who can do those who can't, sit around and whine about those who are doing.  We are liking this because podcasts can be about anything and this gives us a chance to talk about anything that they talk about.  As well, we can talk about the people who are talking about it.

So, that being said cheers and welcome to the player haters ball!

Let's start with some love...
If you could not tell already, we love
Memory Palace
This American Life
My Brother My Brother & Me
Here's The Thing
Doug Loves Movies
Slate Political Gabfest
Never Not Funny
Fitzdog Radio
Radiotolab
The Joe Rogan Experience
Friday Night Comedy

Then there are those that we do not recommend but we will always ask you to decide for yourself!
What are some of your favorites?
Follow us on twitter at @thep_c_d_g 

If I had a nickel for every line I stole from Nate DiMeo

If I had a nickel for every time I stole one of Nate DiMeo's lines from The Memory Palace.  If I could tell you how many times I managed to pull one of the random facts that so effortlessly weaves into his podcast or how deftly he sets the tone and emotion of what he is talking about.  If I had a nickel for just those things...I would probably have a dollar or two.

Nate does what a lot of podcasts do, impart knowledge.  What makes his different is the poetry that he brings to the internet.  The way he has of transporting the listener to the exotic and sometimes not so exotic places he talks about.  The way he takes you to that time, either recent, or long ago.  Listen to the podcast and you feel like you are in that place, in that time.

Nate DiMeo has a pattern, a rhythm. 

 He has a way of speaking that imprints on your brain, and for a little while after listening, you find yourself speaking like him; 

in hushed tones of recollection and reverie... In sentences that seem to trail off and allow you, the listener to complete the thought.

I listened to Episode 72 over and over again just for the line at 2:29 

and Episode 70  just for the line at 1:46.

For The Memory Palace, a destination podcast for me, that comes out every other week, I recommend you listen without a drink...at first.  Then listen again.  The second time do so with a good idea of what you are going to hear again and how much you liked or disliked it.  Think about the content of the story and what he is saying.  The Memory Palace is never beer and is never Tequila.  Because the stories are so varied, we recommend a nice whiskey, smokey and deep, or a vodka, crisp and clean, or a piney gin.  Either of these will fit any story but they must always be neat. 

My Brother My Brother & Me changed my life!

Well, "changed" is a bit strong.  Griffin, Justin, and Travis just make me giggle.  They are really
every thing I like about some podcasts. I love a good throwback joke #100livesofblackjacksavage and I love a rich history that comes from longevity.  I got in on about episode 100 or so and now they have just passed 300.    That is a good thing.  I was able to go back and try to catch up and pick up on some of the jokes (kiss your dad square on the lips.)

 
Drink of choice is...beer of course but, pref. Guinness.  It is definitely not a cocktail show and one could be tempted to go with PBR, but the jokes are not lowbrow enough.

We also recommend a big pile of pizza rolls.

The official rules come up at 6 pm  Monday May 9th and then we are going to start listening at 7 pm EST  Join the fun!

Take a sip when...

Our ride began with Pop Culture Happy Hour.  My roommate and I had the hangout house.  He was a bartender so we always had booze.  I was/am a chef, so I always had food.  We had the big screen tv and the Play Station 3 and the all too massive stereo.  The tradition became that we would all gather and have a few drinks before going out and I would put on a podcast to listen to.  We were new to podcasts then (ahh to be young again!).

That is when we discovered Linda Holmes... Tino was the first to pick it up so I credit him with the discovery.  I will also direct you to him when we talk about blame.  "Genre"  Linda Holmes used the word "genre" a lot.  

Let's be honest about one thing from the start.  EVERYONE has their "thing".  Everyone in the world has their own speech patterns.  I am sure deep in the wilds of the African continent there is someone who speaks a Khoisan dialect that uses too many clicks and is teased by the other Bantu.

Tino had the brilliant idea to break out the whiskey and do a shot every time she said "genre".  I made the mistake of tweeting to her about it and she has since laid off a bit.

We do a lot of work (most of us work on a farm, make of that what you will) but we spend a lot of hours in the sun planting, picking, pulling, etc. and a lot of time listening to podcasts.  We tend to go about our business with our various podcasts downloaded and start at the same time as we go our separate ways across the farm or where ever.  

We got into a rhythm and we hope to talk about some of our favorite podcasts and get to know some new ones.  

Stay tuned!

Oh and standing rule #1 drink whatever you want but be over 21 and drink in moderation.

Standing rule #2, take a shot whenever Paul F Tompkins appears on a podcast!