Category Archives: Celebrity
Living Conflict Free Life With O.J.
During his successful parole hearing O.J. Simpson said that he’d lived a “conflict free life.” Maybe he has multiple lives we don’t know about.
Trump Putin Collusion
President Trump met with Russian President Putin for over two hours at the G-20 Summit in Hamburg. Secretary of State Tillerson says they had a “robust exchange“, and that Trump pushed Putin about interference in our election.
Collusion
Maybe. Who knows what really goes on behind closed doors?
But I think they pounded shots of vodka and colluded about collusion.
Trump Body Slams CNN Logo
No doubt you’ve seen the clip where President Trump body slams a CNN logo. Naturally, Trump retweeted it. The NYT has a good video back story to the tweet here.
The tweet was beneath the dignity of the presidency. But what else is new?
Media Condemns Trump Body Slam
I thought the clip was amusing. But others saw it as an incitement to violence against members of the media. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press issued a statement reflecting that view.
As it happens, I’m a member of the steering committee for RCFP. It’s an organization with a proud history defending unpopular speech. This is a case where we should have defended unpopular satire, not condemn it.
Here’s the RCFP statement:
On Sunday, President Donald Trump made a public statement on Twitter that glorified physical violence against members of the press.
Bruce Brown, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, made the following statement:
“We condemn the president’s threat of physical violence against journalists. This tweet is beneath the office of the presidency. Sadly, it is not beneath this president.
“No one should be threatened with physical harm for doing their jobs. Journalists are your neighbors, they’re your friends. Journalists perform a critical function in our society, one the Founding Fathers felt was so necessary that they enshrined it first in the Bill of Rights.
“They wrote that ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.’
“Freedom of the press is a cornerstone of our democracy. The press are the people’s window into the halls of power, and most importantly, they are the people’s check on that power. When the president attacks the press, he attacks the people.”
Fellow Traveler Dennis Rodman
Dennis Rodman flew under the radar on his recent trip to North Korea. He arrived the same day Otto Warmbier was released from prison there. Otto soon died from brain injuries sustained during his 17 months of incarceration.
Rodman was uninjured on his trip. Guess he didn’t steal any souvenirs.
Dennis Rodman
A USA Today story says Rodman seems to be taking credit for Otto’s release. “I was just so happy to see the kid released,” “Later that day, that’s when we found out he was ill, no one knew that. We jumped up and down … Some good things came of this trip.”
The State Department and Otto’s father say Rodman “had nothing to do with his release.”
Uber Founder Ejected
Uber investors forced C.E.O. Travis Kalanick out of the company he founded.
Here’s Reuters:
The resignation sent shockwaves through Silicon Valley and leaves Uber’s board of directors with the problem of finding a dynamic leader who also has a steady hand needed to heal Uber after a bruising six months.
Uber Founder Ejected
And here’s MIT Technology Review on Uber’s driverless car problem:
Its new CEO will inherit many problems, but a business plan based on the elusive dream of driverless cars is the largest.
