Underwhelmed by TV

HBO based House of the Dragon on a 131-page George R. R. Martin short story called “The Princess and the Queen.” The story focused on two women in rival Targaryen houses.

The New York Times Sunday Arts & Leisure section printed a three-page (including the cover) article entitled “TV so Well-Made, it Underwhelms,” by James Poniewozik.
The 5/5/2024 cover carried a different title than what appeared on facing pages 12 and 13.
That read: “It’s Comfortable. Too Comfortable,” as well as a subtitle: “Mid TV is polished, professional and cinematic. But where’s the ambition?”

The premise of the article is that many current streaming shows have high-level production values.
Yet, these series are just “Mid” (for Meh, or middle-of-the-road?) TV.

The Hulu series Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans was based on Lawrence Learner’s book Capote’s Women. Many streaming series are either based on non-fiction books, or on novels. 

I’m baffled as to why the NYT allotted so much space to this feature article.
Was it to prove that the “Gray Lady” is “keeping up” with streaming TV?
Is it meant to punish Disney+ or Apple TV+ for failing to deliver ground-breaking television?
What was the motive?

Actually, the contrast between the text, and the presentation of Poniewozik’s article, mirrors the author’s criticism of TV, in that the space given to the photos, is way out of proportion to the unbaked ideas.
Murky photographs from Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon, Big Little Lies, Apples Never Fall, Fosse/Verdon, Feud, Breaking Bad, Ozark, Masters of the Air, and Loki take up far too much “real estate” in proportion to the words.

TV and movie execs have always “thrown money” at TV and movie screens.
One of the reasons why director/ producer Roger Corman (who died recently at 98) never joined the “major leagues” was because he didn’t believe in the old “you have to spend money to make money” adage.

Poniewozik mentions around 56 productions in his essay, and nearly all were generated by HBO-MAX, Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, or Disney+.
The cultural hierarchy is clear.
Unless you’re subscribing to all of these services, you’ve no chance of seeing anything that’s “original, provocative, or ‘important.’”

Of the many shows that Poniewozik mentions, I’d be surprised if he really watched more than 25.
As a non-critic, I’ve only watched a fifth of the shows listed: Game of Thrones, Manhunt, Feud: Capote Vs. the Swans, The Bear, Deadwood, Severance, Shrinking, Yoki, and The Morning Show.*
(I still intend to catch up on House of the Dragon.)

I’ve seen so few of these potentially “important” shows because I don’t subscribe to all the streaming services.
Furthermore, I don’t watch dramas and comedies while ironing.
(Poniewozik assumes that everyone multi-tasks, while they watch TV. I reserve my TV and chore multi-tasking for watching the news, and crime shows on Discovery.)

Severance, an Apple TV+ fantasy about office workers whose minds are (surgically?) divided between their work and their home lives. The series stars Adam Scott as widowed office-worker Mark Scout.

I do agree with some of Mr. Poniewozik’s opinions.
Severance is a great show.
I also have given up on shows after one or two episodes, because they seem to be all style, with little substance.
However, I realize that I could be mistaken.
Some series start out weak, and become much better.
I just don’t have the time to give these shows another chance.

There’s a battle for survival among the streaming services, and one weapon is money.
In order to inspire more people to subscribe, streaming services boost the budgets.
Another tool is moving programs from a free network to a streaming service (like when CBS moved Evil to Paramount), and tempting viewers with one free episode (as when Peacock aired the first episodes of The Traitors on NBC).

I noticed that Poniewozik didn’t offer any opinion on several well-publicized streaming shows.
(Were there financial, or synergy, reasons for these omissions?)
He doesn’t mention Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building (unless he’s referring to it with his crack about Meryl Streep), or HBO-MAX’s Lovecraft Country.
He also omitted other less publicized streaming shows, that my husband and I enjoyed: Foundation, Slow Horses, Devs, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, and Death and Other Details (to name five). 

Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (Tobias Menzies) talks with Mrs. Lincoln (Lili Taylor) on the Lincoln funeral train. The Apple TV series Manhunt wasn’t just about the hunt for John Wilkes Booth. It was also about slavery, Reconstruction, and a divided nation.

In one paragraph, Poniewozik attacks three Apple TV+ shows calling them “classy but inert.”
I have no opinion on two of the shows—Constellation (a space drama) or The New Look (about fashion)—because I haven’t watched either.
However, I enjoyed Manhunt, and although it had some flaws, it certainly wasn’t “inert.”

One of the reasons I enjoyed Manhunt was the historical period that it explored.
In episode four, “The Secret Line,” Lafayette Baker (Patton Oswald) breaks up Wall Street’s “Gold Room,” in which “former” wealthy Confederates traded gold against the U.S. dollar.
Later, Baker comments that “justice is a commodity for millionaires.”
(Rather topical to me.)
Tobias Menzies was excellent as the tormented main character, Secretary Edwin Stanton.
Anthony Boyle was fascinating as the fanatic actor, John Wilkes Booth.
How was this particular series inert? 

Poniewozik makes a critical error when he half-heartedly watches one episode, and proclaims a show “warmed over,” “forgettable,” “by the numbers,” “comic book,” “toothless,” “padded to the limit,” “superfluous,” or “threadbare.”
Mini-series may be uneven.
Sometimes, concepts are ruined by TV executives.
Sometimes, the viewer is just in the wrong mood.

Most of all, I disagree with Poniewozik’s opinion that productions are “too polished to be awful.”
Of course, polished shows can be awful!
A show can have great cinematography but rotten scripts.
The costumes and sets might knock you over, but if it’s badly cast, who cares?

Poniewozik seems to expect more television to have that rare combination of excellent scripts, well-cast actors, and spectacular production values, in a world in which too many cooks—especially TV executives—may spoil the broth.
Rather than be grateful when creatives come together to make something good, he grumbles because there’s lipstick on a pig, and too many countries provided backgrounds.

The first season of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is said to have cost $150 million. Can that be true? Personally, I'm looking forward to season two.

His weirdest idea is criticizing artists and producers for “lack of ambition.”
Unless he’s interviewed the people working on the shows, where’s the evidence for that?

James Poniewozik, and The New York Times, shouldn’t criticize creatives for “beautifying” series that aren’t worth a viewer’s time, or not making “ambitious” series.
That argument won’t make TV execs approve more innovative shows.
While creatives may earn their daily bread by doing good work, their untalented overlords are earning much more money for dumbing shows down.

TV execs are throwing more and more dollars at our screens, all for that precious $9.99 a month from millions of jaded consumers.
While a TV mini-series may cost $15 million dollars per episode, the total yearly compensation for a Disney+ or Netflix CEO is in the $25-$40 million range.
No wonder execs think nothing of transporting actors and production artists all over the world.

* Usually, my taste aligns with that of my soulmate, and we watch television together. However, I haven’t joined him as he watches Shogun, Watchman, or Wandavision (3 of the 56 TV series mentioned—in passing—in Poniewozik’s NYT article).

The Plight of the INCEL

 

The “wild and crazy” Festrunk Brothers (Steve Martin and Dan Aykroyd) seek large-breasted American women, in a 1977 Saturday Night Live skit.

Some involuntarily-celibate men are angry at uppity women.
You know what I mean: women who are too “discriminating” as to their dating patterns.
This is a patriarchal society!
Why are women “so fussy” about what men earn per year, or whether they can talk comfortably with the second sex?

These men seem confused about the type of love they’re looking for.
On one hand, they believe in traditional gender roles, in which women are just commodities.
Yet, many INCELs are unable to “handle” the breadwinner role.
Contrarily, “CELs” also seem to yearn for some form of “romantic love.”

What these men have forgotten is that it isn’t the male sex that’s in charge.
It’s the wealthy men.
Without wealth, you’re at the bottom at the totem pole, along with women and non-white men.
In any transactional relationship, you must provide something in exchange.
Within that world view—if a man can’t provide security to a woman—at least she needs a handsome physique, or easy conversation. 

There are categories of INCELs.
One category is the inept man who doesn’t know how to flirt, but who’s essentially non-violent.
An example from the past is the Festrunk Brothers on SNL.
The Slovakian brothers thought women with “big American breasts” will be attracted by their garish tight pants and polyester shirts.
Sometimes, these men aren’t stupid.
Although INCELs believe they’re entitled to female attention, they’re just not skilled at obtaining it.
Such men are usually more annoying than harmful, (unless, of course, they’re your manager).

One can think of the Me-Too movement as the rebellion of women against those INCELs (often married INCELs*) who gain money and power.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
In a world in which women are second class citizens, powerful men believe they are owed sexual favors by underlings.
Just as other INCELs, they can’t pick up the signals, and think resistant women are just being “coy.”

1985’s Weird Science tells the story of two high school nerds, Gary and Wyatt (Anthony Michael Hall and Ilan Mitchell-Smith) who create their own “perfect woman” (Kelly LeBrock).

Popular culture has created humorous stories of “nerds” seeking love.
There’s Weird Science, in which the teenagers don’t want sex; they just want to watch their “perfect woman” doing aerobics.
There’s also The Big Bang Theory, (2007-2019) in which scientists Dr. Leonard Hofstader (Johnny Galecki), Dr. Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons), and Dr. Simon Helberg (Howard Wolowitz) vie to win the attention of attractive girlfriends, despite their over-educated geekiness.  

Another category of INCEL is the male creature who becomes very angry after rejection (sexual need spilling out into violence).
One recent example was Joel Cauchi, who killed six people, and injured twelve—all female, except a male security guard—in an Australian mall.
Cauchi was a 40-year-old diagnosed schizophrenic, who went off his meds, and had difficulty making female friends.
There have been many such terrorists—men who merge fear of women with hatred for an unjust society: Ted Kaczynski and Timothy McVeigh, to name two.

Ted Kaczynski, a brilliant scholar with a PhD in mathematics, was known as the “Unabomber.”
He used mail bombs to murder three people, and maim 23 others, between 1978-1995.
His targets were a computer scientist, an ad executive, an airline president, and a timber industry lobbyist: all males who he associated with his theories of “anti-nature technology.”
Kaczynski sought a woman to join him in his isolated cabin (until he landed in prison).
However, he likely died a virgin. 

In 1995, veteran Timothy McVeigh bombed an Oklahoma City Federal building killing 149 adults, 19 children, and injuring 680 others.
(McVeigh was tried and executed for this crime.)
According to Wikipedia, McVeigh was very shy around women and his romantic dreams were frustrated by repeated rejections.
He felt victimized by the U.S. federal government, as well as corporate elites, convinced that these forces were plotting to take away his freedom.

The 1971 film Willard (with Bruce Davison as Willard Stiles and Ernest Borgnine as Al Martin) is based on the 1968 Stephen Gilbert novel Ratman’s Notebooks.

In the 1971 version of Willard, Willard Stiles’ subconscious anger isn’t directed so much at women as it is toward his overbearing mother Henrietta (the great Elsa Lanchester), and his grasping boss Al Martin (the equally great Ernest Borgnine).
Al Martin stole the Stiles fortune, and also wants to steal the Stiles mansion.
As the film begins, Henrietta Stiles is controlling her son’s life from her sick bed.
Willard uses his pet rats to gain some autonomy, and his newfound sense of confidence does attract a women friend, Joan Simms (Sandra Locke).
However, by the end of Willard, Willard Stiles’ life is still not his own.
He protects Joan from the rats, but succumbs to their attack.

Moma’s boy, Willard Stiles (Crispin Glover), bonds with his pet rats in the 2003 film Willard.

In the 2003 reworking of Willard, Willard Stiles (Crispin Glover), also attracts a girlfriend—Cathryn, played by Laura Elena Harring—after his rat friends give him a new air of confidence.
However, his feminine companion (unlike Joan Simms, in the 1971 Willard film) eventually realizes that he’s in league with the rats.
This Willard winds up in a mental institution cell, but the rats still have their sights on him.

Cover of Ratman’s Notebooks by Stephen Gilbert.

Both films are based on the 1968 novel Ratman’s Notebooks (written by a British native, Stephen Gilbert).
In the first part of the book, the main character says:

No girl would look at me twice. Not unless she was desperate. Not even then. Girls have a great nose for money. They have to have. They’re like cats, prowling round to find the best place to have kittens. When Father was alive, I used to sometimes notice girls running their eyes over me, but it never came to anything. I remember one of them telling me that she thought I would suit her best friend. But most of them didn’t even think I was up to that standard. I don’t know how they knew. Nowadays they don’t even give me a second glance.

By the end of the novel, with the help of the rats, Willard regains his father’s business.
“The girl” snags Willard; they’re redecorating his house, and planning marriage.
By the last pages, chief rat Ben (and the rest of Ben’s rat friends) know that Willard wants to poison them (so he can lead a conventional life with his bride).
By the very last page, rats are gnawing at the attic door, and no one can hear Willard’s yelling.

*One can argue that married INCELs are technically not involuntarily celibate. However, all men can end celibacy simply by hiring a prostitute. An INCEL is someone who resents women for not “behaving properly,” and giving men attention (sexual or romantic attention) no matter their lack of money or charm.

Demonizing “the Other”

1938 Nazi propaganda praising the “Neues Volk” (the “New People”) of Nazi Germany.

Why Hitler chose to persecute the Jews of Europe when he did is puzzling.

It was very untimely!

If he’d delayed the murder of innocent Jews, dissidents, and other supposed inferiors—until after he had extended the borders of Germany—Hitler might have won the war.

Similarly, it’s puzzling why Donald Trump chooses to denigrate immigration, and immigrants, in the 2020’s.

All the statistics say that there’s no factual basis for his claims.

I guess it’s just another gambit in the culture war.

If he ever admitted that American big business is dependent on immigration—and that his “great wall” was just a scam—his chances to win (on November 5th) would go down.

Trump can’t help saying South American immigrants bring drugs and crime, just as Hitler couldn’t help saying that Jews were vermin.

Essentially, Fascists fought against globalism as well as equal rights for all peoples, from 1923-1945.
Right-wing movements (like MAGA and Putin’s Russia) are fighting against globalism, and equal rights for all, today.

Hitler claimed that Jews were ruining Germany, despite the fact that many German Jews were patriotic veterans of WWI; made up only 1% of the population; and a share had intermarried with Christians, or converted to Christianity.
Perhaps, Hitler believed—that for his brand of politics to win—it required a scrape-goat to blame.
Maybe, his unreasoning resentment of Jews—plus his belief that Aryan people needed to be in complete control—turned Jewish destruction into a principal goal.
Did Hitler plot to become the ruler of Germany as revenge, for the way he was treated as an untalented art student, and as an inept foot soldier?
Is Trump plotting to become President once more, for revenge against those who don’t respect him?

Hitler’s resentment of Jews is the chief reason why the German Fascists didn’t simply turn the Jews into second class citizens, as Mussolini did in Italy (until 1938), and as America has done with its’ Black citizens (and its’ immigrants).
In Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism, one story that Rachel Maddow tells, is that of Lawrence Dennis, an American diplomat who (in 1936) advised his Nazi friends to avoid American criticism, and “treat the Jews more or less as we treat the Negroes in America.”*
Mr. Dennis’ advice was not taken seriously.

During the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the German government put on a performance for the rest of the world.
All the signage against the Jewish population was removed, and foreign newspapers were sold once more at newsstands.
During the Olympics, shopkeepers and hotel owners were instructed to fake “extreme tolerance” to foreign visitors, even American Blacks and Jews.

Of course, the scheme worked!
Newspapers—like The New York Times—spoke glowingly of Hitler’s “great leadership,” and ignored all evidence of his treatment of minorities.

Jesse Owens beating the German and Japanese runners, in the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

The American Olympic Committee—so as not to “offend Hitler”—didn’t allow Jewish athletes, Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller, to compete in the 400-meter relay.

(Glickman and Stoller were replaced, at the last minute, by Jesse Owens and Ralph Metcalfe.)
Sad note: F.D.R. didn’t bother to send congratulatory telegrams to any of the eighteen Black athletes who participated in the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Beginning about 1933, the German education system rewrote the textbooks, and taught its’ children, that all people—except Nordic or Aryan—were “bastard races,” incapable of civilization.
Jews were described as alien, and less than human.
These textbooks described made-up physical differences between Aryans and Jews (for example, that Jews had longer arms, and longer skulls).

Another method that Nazis used to reshape society, was to separate German children emotionally from their parents (the people who could have taught them a moral code).
Boys and girls were placed in paramilitary groups, where they were instructed to trust the Nazi Party, more than their mothers and fathers. 

A painting of Gaius Scaevola, a Roman centurion who placed his arm in fire, and showed no pain. 

Italian fascism began a bit earlier before German fascism, and it didn’t rely as much on blaming “the other.”
Instead, Mussolini tried “to improve” Italians, and persuade them to become more similar to the ancient Romans.
Partito Nazionale Fascista radio broadcasts talked about Gaius Scaevola (a Roman centurion, so macho that he was immune to pain) and turning the Mediterranean Sea into “an Italian lake.”

Mussolini didn’t pass his antisemitic racial laws until 1938.
However, scholars argue that Mussolini didn’t establish those laws just as a late concession to Hitler.
Despite all the intermarriage between Christians and Jews in Italy, antisemitism has long been an aspect of Italian culture.
(It also must have annoyed Mussolini that Italian Jews—for example, Primo Levi—were among the first to organize against his fascist government.)

In Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, Candlewick stands up to his father, a Fascist military official who despises “weakness.”

Patriarchy and Fascism are hand in hand.
The Italian educational system underwent an overhaul between 1923-1928.
In 1923, Mussolini appointed Giovanni Gentile as the Minister of Education, a man who believed women were only fit to bear children.
As a result, Gentile made sure that women couldn’t be teachers at the higher grade levels, and that women would not be in positions of authority over men.
The Italian government wanted Italian boys to become citizen-soldiers, but mere girls were left in the hands of the Catholic Church.
In 1929, all teachers were required to take the Fascist oath of allegiance, and schools had to use the new Fascist textbooks.
By 1934, all Italian teachers were required to join Fascist militias, and to wear their uniforms during school hours.

The Trisulti Charterhouse

The topic of Fascism in Italy reminds me of the school for right-wing American politicians (The Academy for the Judeo-Christian West) that political advisor Steve Bannon is planning to create in central Italy.
The site of the proposed “gladiator school” is an 800-year abandoned monastery called “Trisulti.”
(There’s been a dispute over this school since 2017. Recently, an Italian court ruled that it would be legal.)
The goal of the academy (according to an article in The New Yorker, quoting Bannon), is to create the next generation of Trump followers.

We’re engaged in a “culture war,” that’s dividing society into two camps.
Just as we would expect changes in how our health care is managed, a Trump presidency—along with a subservient Congress and a right-wing Supreme Court—would make unpopular changes in the educational system, the judicial system, and the criminal justice system.
(Have Libertarians really thought the Trump agenda through?) 

Today, candidate Trump is demonizing “the other.”
Among others, his targets are immigrants, and those who refuse to be second class citizens to white wealthy Americans.
He proclaims that immigrants are escaped lunatics, sex criminals, Hannibal Lector types, and somehow poisoning American blood.
When he visited his Trump fence—at the Texas border (in 2024)—he accused immigrants of speaking intelligible languages.
(I wonder what Candidate Trump misheard, that he came up with that ridiculous remark?)

It’s funny; Benjamin Franklin often complained that German immigrants didn’t assimilate quickly enough into American culture.
Did Donald Trump, and his father, ever truly assimilate?

*Rachel Maddow reveals—in the epilogue of Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism—that Lawrence Dennis was a bi-racial man who lived as a white man.

 

Fearing Societal Collapse, or Creating It?

Gloria (America Ferrera) explains being a woman to Barbie, in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie.

In Dorothy L. Sayer’s essay, “The Human-Not-Quite-Human,”* she imagines how strange life would appear to men, if they were always judged in terms of their maleness:

If everything he wore, said, or did had to be justified by reference to female approval. . . if the center of his dress consciousness were the cod-piece, his interests held to be natural only in so far as they were sexual.

There’s a wide range of behavior that’s considered “male.”
Men can be interested in knowledge, sports, or both.
They’re allowed to enjoy solitude, or to be more social.
They can be “alpha males,” or they can be “good soldiers.”
They can choose to raise a family, or they can concentrate on their own satisfactions.
They can be burly, or they can be slim.
All these ways of living are acceptable, if they’re men.

If you’re a woman, it’s another story.
Today, as ever, women are allowed to be intelligent, but not too intelligent.
Then, they’re freaks!
It’s considered good if females are a bit shy, but they mustn’t be “wall flowers.”
It’s attractive if they’re a bit feisty, but only at the proper times.
Woman can be promoted to management, but they mustn’t be too mean, or too aggressive.
Women are pitied if they don’t bear children, but if men don’t participate in their families it isn’t a big deal.
Women can be a bit too fat, or a bit too thin, and they’re bullied for it either way (often by their own gender).
These are the rules, because females are still “the other.”

Feminists have been discussing this issue for many years.
America Ferrera was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar—for expressing virtually the same idea—in Gloria’s speech (written by Greta Gerwig) in 2023’s Barbie:

You’re supposed to stay pretty for men, but not too pretty that you tempt them too much, or that you threaten other women because you’re supposed to be part of the sisterhood. 

Katharine Hepburn resisting social norms by wearing pants, in the early 1930s.

It is much easier to be a “thinking woman” in the 2020s, then it was a hundred years ago (during Dorothy Sayers’ youth).
Then, it was considered extremely odd for a woman to wear pants, earn an advanced degree, or live on her own.
Francesca Wade’s book Square Haunting: Five Writers in London Between the Wars tells the story of British artists and authors, who enjoyed lives as semi-independent women, in London, during the early 20th century.
The five women are: Hilda Doolittle (a poet), Dorothy L. Sayers (a mystery author and scholar), Jane Harrison (a scholar), Eileen Power (an historian), and Virginia Woolf (a writer).

Panel from “Fury of the Femizons” Savage Tales #1 (1971) by Stan Lee and John Romita Sr, showing a female-dominated society.
You can read the complete story HERE.

If we lived in a matriarchal society, we might be as obsessed with a man’s cod-piece, as men are with female breasts (always gazing below their waists, and not into their eyes).
Men might be told that they were “meant for” heavy labor, and to leave all the important thinking occupations to women.
Men might be criticized for shamelessly displaying their abs, and tempting women into lust.
Science-fiction has had a field day with these scenarios (mainly as comedies).

Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson looking befuddled, as usual.

In 2022, pundit Tucker Carlson, issued the strange Fox Nation documentary The End of Men.
In this film, Carlson decries the social and hormonal emasculation of American males.
Carlson postulates that, only by men reasserting dominance over women—and becoming hyper masculine—can the earth be put back on its’ proper axis.
Ads on TV ask people to contribute $19 a week to “stop transsexual athletes”.

This turmoil, over sex roles, is similar to what went on in Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s National Fascist Party, when women were forced into the breeder role, and discouraged from higher education.
There were a few women who resisted this trend, for example, Sophie Scholl (1921-1943), who helped build the White Rose Movement.
However, most women meekly acquiesced to being helpmates. 

Mike Wellington (Christopher Walken) explaining how he “returns to the natural order,” with men having control over their wives, in 2004’s The Stepford Wives.

Senator Katie Britt—the female politician who read her State of the Union rebuttal speech from her kitchen—also seems concerned with the emasculation of men.
Why else would she turn herself into a Stepford wife? 

Kitchens aren’t a bad location to make a speech.
(For many of my co-workers—when I worked from home—their kitchen was their office.)
Senator Britt stated that being a wife and mother is her most important job, and that’s true.
Being a mom is more important than being a Senator.
(That’s why Nancy Pelosi waited until her youngest child was in high school, before she became a politician. Here I am, “woman-shaming;” to each their own.)

Katie Britt, attempting to be relatable, in a kitchen, during her State of the Union rebuttal.

The main point of Britt’s narrative, however, was (using her own words) that “the country we know and love is slipping away.”
It all goes back to the MAGA credo that only Trump can mystically eradicate the evils of “wokeness.”
(If a “woke” society would be one that was not patriarchal, not racist, and which accepted homosexuality, I’m with a “woke” society)

In order to prove her main point—that a Progressive America is a nightmare America—Britt told the story of Karla Romero, a woman who Britt did have some contact with (just not one-on-one) in 2023.
However, Romero’s tragedy of being raped (as a 12-year-old), didn’t happen in the U.S., and it wasn’t at the hands of a drug cartel.
The rapes happened during Republican President George Bush’s administration, in Mexico, after Karla Romero was kidnapped by a pimp. 

Britt, along with her handlers, used this “alternative truth” to blame President Biden for all of society’s ills, and to convince her fearful audience that only Trump could keep Christian women safe from sexual exploitation (as if any President could).
Britt’s goal was for Trump’s base to identify with her, but she’s a much worse actor than Trump.
(Her inauthenticity disturbed the mass audience, but it still might give her some Vice-Presidential points.)

Another issue that Britt brought up was the “DNA” of America, and how her white pioneer ancestors conquered the continent.
(Like Trump, Britt wants America to believe that only white Christians built this country.)
That section of her speech hasn’t been widely discussed.

MAGA Republicans seem to blame leftist Progressives for the role of women slowly evolving in Western society.
However, studies—like a 6/12/2023 U.N. report—indicate that there’s been no serious “improvement in biases against women in a decade.”
Nine out of ten people (worldwide) still believe that women are by nature less competent, and less fit to govern, than men.
While parts of the world may be headed in a progressive direction, real progress for women is at a stand still, and sometimes (as in abortion rights) going backward.

The theory that women should be subservient to men is based on the old “might makes right” principal.
Women tend to be smaller and to have less muscle strength than men.
Also, our main religions are based on the idea that for men to have control over women is somehow more “natural.”
As a result, since ancient times, there have been many more patriarchal than matriarchal societies. 

Women in this country were given the right to vote only 100 years ago, in 1920.
U.S. women were given the right to obtain a credit card (on their own), in 1974.
Women are underrepresented—both in the higher levels of government, and in Big Business—while at the same time being slightly overrepresented in higher education.
Overall, women still earn at least 16% less than men!

Registering disapproval of “societal trends,” by casting a vote for a con-man, is not a good idea.
Those who believe in a white hierarchy—with white men enjoying natural authority over women and non-whites—may think they’d be safe from any “inconveniences” brought on by living under a Trump reign.
If Trump is reelected—although contraception, in vitro fertilization, and abortion may no longer be allowed for poor and middle-class women—they’re convinced that these choices would still be granted to them.
MAGA voters may imagine that they’d be thrilled with “smaller” government, “lefties” cowed into submission, immigrants deported, less regulation of Big Business, the National Guard in charge of cities, and the U.S.A. setting up alliances with right-wing governments (like Putin’s Russia).
Be careful what you wish for.

*Unpopular Opinions, Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957), Victor Gollancz, LTD., London, 1946.

Did McConnell (and Trump) Really Lower Your Taxes?

Scottish-born Scrooge McDuck (created in 1947 by Carl Barks for Walt Disney Company) is a wealthy business duck, shown diving into his personal money vault.

Some comedies of the 1950’s had interesting attitudes toward taxes and wealth.

In the 1950 fantasy—The Great Rupert (aka The Christmas Wish)—a vaudevillian family is unaware that a trained squirrel is responsible for money raining down on them from the ceiling (every Thursday between 3-3:30 PM).

Rupert, the squirrel, is moving money from their landlord’s secret stash in the apartment above.
The Amendola family is convinced that the cash is a heavenly gift, and they use it (reasonably wisely) to pay their rent, celebrate a lovely Christmas, and help their neighbors.
Local gossip brings the FBI, tax investigators, and the police.
However, there’s a happy ending.

Lobby card from the fantasy The Great Rupert, with Louie Amendola (Jimmy Durante, middle) and his wife (Queenie Smith, left) confronting representatives of the city, state, and Federal Government over their tax debt.

A scene—in which Mr. and Mrs. Amendola attempt to convince the taxmen that their money was a gift from above—is shown above.

Another comedy from 1950 is The Jackpot.
In this film, Bill Lawrence (James Stewart) wins $24,000 (in prizes) on a radio quiz program, only to learn he’ll need to pay $7,000 in taxes.
(In that era, according to the tax laws, you needed to pay taxes on the full retail prices for all won prizes.)
As a result, Jimmy’s pleasant life is turned upside down, and he could lose his job, his marriage, and his house.
In 1950, $24,000 was the equivalent of $309,038.34 today, and $7,000 was the equivalent of $90,136.18.

Lobby card from The Mating Game, with IRS agent Lorenzo Charlton (Tony Randall, left) trying to persuade Mariette Larkin (Debbie Reynolds, middle) and patriarch Pop Larkin (Paul Douglas, right) that the Larkin family owes money to the Federal Government.

The 1959 comedy, The Mating Game, tells the story of the Larkins—a farming family that lives by bartering for goods and services—and who haven’t filed tax returns in several generations.
Tony Randall is an IRS agent assigned to investigate how much back taxes they owe.
Like The Great Rupert, The Mating Game is a comedy with a happy ending.
In the case of the Larkin family, the Feds actually owe the Larkins money!

The theme of all of these films is that money doesn’t equal happiness.
It’s also that living in a nonmaterialistic way, is much better than existing as a tightfisted money-grubber.
In both The Great Rupert and The Mating Game, jealous people call up the IRS to report on their neighbors.
In The Great Rupert, a few neighbors are envious of the Amendola family; in The Mating Game, a wealthy neighbor desires the Larkin land.

Taxation is a mandatory contribution to a government (by its’ citizens), in order to acquire revenue for governmental needs.*
By designing new laws, and altering tax rates, governments do more than care for their citizens.
The taxation system affects the disposable income available to the population.
As economies change, so must the tax structures.

Bostonians tarring and feathering the excise man (based on a print published in London in 1774).

The individual income tax was first introduced, in 1798, in England.
However, individual income taxes didn’t become progressive until 1907 (in England), and 1914 (in the U.S.).
One principal of taxation is that taxes be equitable, but that’s a difficult goal to achieve.
Economists fear that taxpayers may choose to work less, save less, or invest less, depending on the tax structure; therefore, governments “tinker” with the tax code. 

There were some good things about the McConnell-Trump Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, but all the good aspects were temporary!
The new law changed the tax brackets, and increased the income levels, which reduced some taxes.
The Tax Act also increased the standard deduction, so less people are itemizing.
The sad fact remains that most of the good changes all vanish in 2025! 

The main problem with the McConnell-Trump Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 was that the revised tax laws made inequality worse, plus it increased the national debt!
Besides permanently cutting the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, it doubled the estate tax exemption from $11 million per couple to $22 million per couple, and cut the top rate from 39.6% to 37%.

McConnell, and Trump, claimed that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 would be “rocket fuel” for the economy.
They were wrong!
American businesses didn’t invest in new technology, hire more workers, or build more factories.
Instead, they fired workers, gave money to shareholders, and increased the compensation for CEOs.
Little money “trickled down” to middle-class and lower-class tax payers, and the tax system became less equitable.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the McConnell-Trump 2017 Tax Act will cost the Federal Government $1.9 trillion in revenue between 2019-2029.
Furthermore, the national debt increased to $7.8 trillion by the time Trump left office!
The Democratic Party should be talking more about those two facts.
Unless the Government is able to make further changes to the tax codes, in 2025—perhaps, so that people with higher incomes pay a bit more—the Government debt will continue to grow grow and social programs will need to be cut.
Choose your poison!

*All data on the history of taxes taken from the last printed set (1997) of Collier’s Encyclopedia.