Tag Archives: CNN

Watching CNN even though I’m tired of Watching CNN

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Watching CNN

Chris Cuomo,
a man who is so addicted to outrage
that I believe he will actually
miss Donald Trump when he’s gone,
is talking to Adam Schiff,
Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee
and a man who defines the outer limits of ‘decent’.
Adam says in relation to Covid
and the rescue package
that the last thing we need
is another band aid,
another fig leaf
and I’m thinking band aids are for wounds
so that kind of fits
but fig leaves are for ..
well let’s not beat around the bush
they are for covering genitals
and I’m thinking
“steady there, Adam, pump the brakes”
but then I think again and realize he’s right
the fig leaf metaphor is appropriate
because the handling of this crisis
has just been one monumental cock up
after another
from day one
from day one!.

Watching CNN (a sort of rant)

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Anderson, Chris and Don and their assembled pundits are discussing the assassination of General Soleimani, the Iranian general. They all agree that he was a “bad actor”, a “bad guy”. They don’t say “bad hombre”,but it’s knocking at the door. This appears to be sufficient to warrant execution, it’s the timing and ongoing strategy they are concerned about.
Why I ask myself are they talking like characters in a 1950’s western?
Why are they talking like school kids?
Bad guys, good guys – “goodies and baddies”.

Back in the Classroom:

Teacher, by the end of the major combat phase of the Iraq war, 7,419 Iraqi civilians had been killed, primarily by U.S. air-and-ground forces, is George Bush Junior a bad guy, a bad actor, a bad hombre?

No, child, every American president is good.

Teacher, were those innocent civilians “collateral damage” or “victims of terror”?

That is a complex and morally confusing question, child. Here in America we do not like confusion.

Teacher, why do the American media continue to refer to the Canadians killed in the Ukraine Airlines crash as Iranians.

It’s less confusing that way, see above.

Teacher, is President Trump a bad guy, a bad actor, a bad hombre?

No, child, President Trump is a liar, a racist, possibly a crook and possibly a sexual predator but he is not a bad guy, a bad actor, a bad hombre.

Teacher, why are Anderson, Chris and Don so angry with him? Why the sanctimonious, po-faced editorials?

Because he is un-statesmanlike and because they have become lazy and are content to trot out the same tired outrage every day of the week. Their ambition is limited, they are happy just to be “not Hannity”.

But teacher, they seem like nice guys.

Your point is?

Bones of Contention 2 (poem)

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Bones of Contention

Bones to pick
bones to chew on
Anderson, Chris and Don
but there are no metrics to measure by
so the discussions drag on and on
and the screen splits into two heads
and the screen splits into four heads
and the screen splits into eight heads
a pundit arrives
a pundit leaves
a pundit gets indignant
a pundit gets emotional
a pundit gets that gotcha smirk
there is talk of smoke and fire
there not been one without the other
and I see this distraction of pundits
this deflection of pundits
this confusion of pundits
standing looking at the horizon
across an open plain,
oblivious, while behind them
Rome burns.

Anderson Cooper’s Hair (updated)

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Anderson Cooper’s Hair

There’s something comforting
about Anderson Cooper’s hair
its quietude
its insouciance
its unabashed whiteness
no Paul Manafort chocolate brown
no Clooney dusting of grey
no Pavarotti boot polish black
just plain white
lightly cropped
a hint of a comb over, maybe
but that’s ok
and it does not move
Hurricane Barry
a Midwest tornado
vile invective
a blast of foul air
from the president’s mouth
nothing moves Anderson Cooper’s hair;
to misquote Paul McCartney
and triple down on a preposition
in this ever changing world
in which we live in,
there’s something
comforting about that.

Encrusted (not all CNN ads are about bladder control)

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via Daily Prompt: Encrusted 

Encrusted

encrusted with barnacles
encrusted with sesame seed
encrusted with sea salt
from a qualified ocean
rust is a scale
not a crust
some people trust in God
Ron Reagan
says that’s a bust
dust to dust
that’s it
that’s all
life hath no sequel
so have a ball
I wonder
what his dad
thinks of it all.

 

When I saw the daily prompt ‘encrusted’, I thought…well, I like that word but I don’t see a poem in it. Then I was at the gym listening to Don Henley’s album, ‘Cass County’, on Spotify. It’s a country album. I don’t particularly like modern cowboy-hat-and-boots country, the singer always seems to be in a rush to get to the chorus, but this is more singer-songwriter country music and Don Henley is such a good lyricist that I would listen to anything he does. 

Country music, of course, is all about story and rhyme – the melodies are usually lifted from other songs. So, my brain started to absorb that rhyming rhythm and free associate on the word ‘encrusted’ , when I hit “trust in God” I thought of an ad that Ron Reagan has on CNN. The rest…….

Anderson Cooper Gets All Existential

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Anderson Cooper Gets All Existential

Anderson and his panel of pundits are discussing the Robert Mueller investigation into collusion with Russia when…..

out of the blue, Anderson
in that earnest, honest broker way
that he has, says:
“What if there is no there, there?”
and Carl Bernstein concedes
that it is possible there is no there, there;
and the Trump surrogate
with the smug certainty
that only conservatives can muster
says categorically there is no there, there;
the rest of the panel joins in
and they all charge like lemmings
to the edge of an existential cliff.
I am profoundly disturbed by this
because if there is no there, there
then I can’t go there
and what if I call a friend
to meet for coffee
and I say: ”see you there”
but when I arrive there is no there, there
just a vacuum that suggests that
where we are over here
is nothing more than a fever dream
and if there is no here, here
and no there, there
then where the hell are we?

 

Anderson Cooper’s Hair

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Anderson Cooper’s Hair

 

There’s something comforting

about Anderson Cooper’s hair

its quietude

its insouciance

its unabashed whiteness

no Paul Manafort chocolate brown

no Clooney dusting of grey

no Pavarotti boot polish black

just plain white

lightly cropped

a hint of a comb over, maybe

but that’s ok

and it does not move

Hurricane Harvey

Hurricane Irma

blasts of hot air

from a Trump surrogate’s mouth

nothing moves Anderson Cooper’s hair;

to misquote Paul McCartney

and triple down on a preposition

in this ever changing world

in which we live in

there’s something

that’s comforting

about that.

Bones Of Contention

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Bones of Contention

Bones to pick.

Barrack Obama pardons Chelsea Manning.

Donald Trump pardons Joe Arpaio.

Is there moral equivalence here?

The Trump surrogate on CNN thinks so

but there are no metrics to measure by

so the discussions drag on and on

and the screen splits into two heads

and the screen splits into four heads

and the screen splits into eight heads

a pundit arrives

a pundit leaves

a pundit gets indignant

a pundit gets emotional

a pundit gets that gotcha smirk

there is talk of smoke and fire

there not been one without the other

and I see this distraction of pundits

this deflection of pundits

this confusion of pundits

standing looking at the horizon

across an open plain,

oblivious, while behind them

Rome burns.

 

 

 

Doldrums

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Early Sunday morning, Slim and I head down to “The Post-Coital Beetle” to watch Manchester United play Spurs; early because of the 8 hour time difference and because neither of us subscribe to the sports channel showing the game so we can’t PVR it, plus The Beetle is open and we get to watch the game and shout abuse and/or encouragement at the screen in the company of like-minded people. We both order the all day breakfast; it’s called that because it’s available all day, not because it takes all day to eat it. I ask for the eggs over easy, Slim, in an outbreak of irony, orders sunny side up.

It’s nearing the end of the season and the United manager, Jose Mourinho, the surly one, is showing signs of cracking. In a game during the week, he tried to hold onto a one goal lead by switching a to 4 defensive central midfielders and nearly lost the game to a very average Spanish team. Today, he starts with 3 central defenders, and 2 full backs;  one of the central defenders is playing in the full back position and one of the full backs is playing in midfield. Ten minutes in and United’s French striker, Anthony Martial, is sulking around in a state of Gallic pique, because there’s no one to pass the fucking ball to him, which is what I shout at the screen:

“There’s no one to pass the fucking ball to him!”

Plus, there’s something seriously wrong with Wayne Rooney’s hair, he seems to be going bald again, despite his much publicised hair implants.

Predictably, United lose. I turn to Slim for a comment, my nose streaming and my eyes watering because I put too much hot sauce on the hash browns, and he goes all tri-syllabic on me. “Doldrums”, he intones:

Doldrums

end of the

season and

United

look like a

 

team about

to put on

a fucking

garage sale.

And he’s not finished, “I have a bone to pick with you”, he growls. He is wearing a white T shirt stretched over the helmet of his pot belly. The T shirt says: “The end is nigh, and not a moment too soon”. Apparently he’s pissed off because I removed one of his poems from this blog. The poem was called “Moab- an Obituary” and it was his response to the dropping  of very large bomb (The Mother Of All Bombs) on Syria by the US.

MOAB – An Obituary

A sad day,

the Mother

Of All Bombs

is gone, she

 

is sorely

missed by the

bombs she has

left behind.

I explained to him that I had seen Hasan Minhaj on The Daily Show doing  a piece on how serious journalists like Jake Tapper of CNN had started making snarky comments about Donald Trump. His point was that this is a bad thing because we need serious journalists to be serious and snark undermines that seriousness. I thought the last verse of the poem was too snarky.

“Well’, Slim says, “here’s some snark for you, go fuck yourself!”

I point out that this is technically not snark, but he has already stormed out of the pub, leaving behind a sausage which I finish. High point of the morning, really.

 

Fareed Zakaria is Stealing my Stuff

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I was watching Fareed Zakaria and Don Lemon on CNN last Friday night; they were trying to make sense of  the ongoing tragic farce that is the Trump White House and Don Lemon posed a question which could be summarised as follows : “Is Donald Trump crazy like a fox or crazy like a fool”. It was clear that Fareed thinks that the needle has been stuck on ‘fool’ for quite some time. At one point, he says to Don something like “look, you have to understand that Donald Trump is a performance artist.” This sounded familiar to me, so I looked back through my blog posts and there it was in a poem I published on Reuben Wooley’s website :’I am not a Silent Poet” back in January 2016. Here’s the poem, but please click on the link above and check out Reuben’s excellent site.

Trumped

I get it now

Donald T

Is a performance artist

Like that guy in Beijing

Sucking dust out of the air

With a vacuum cleaner

Or maybe he’s

one of those mirrors

In a fairy tale

Reflecting only

The worst in ourselves.

 

Fareed, I’m waiting to hear from you.