Late Night Musings

I was a devoted Tonight Show watcher since the Steve Allen days, up through Carson's last show, and then into the Leno years, at least for "headlines" until the business with Conan O'Brien, where Leno decided to take his show back and leave O'Brien out in the cold.  I couldn't bring myself to watch the Tonight Show ever again after that.  Jimmy Fallon seems like a nice guy and the show is entertaining, but I don't see myself ever watching it with the devotion that I gave to The Tonight Show for decades, mostly because I don't know most of today's "celebrities," especially not today's music.  Call me a fuddy duddy.

I was neither a Letterman fan (nothing against him, I just never watched his show because I was loyal to The Tonight Show) or a Colbert fan (just couldn't get into his vain Conservative shtik, though I liked him as a comedian just fine), but I was interested to see his first show, taking over for Letterman.  The jury is still out.  Some funny bits, some "why did they do that?" bits, a band that I liked better than any of the other late night bands, and I will watch again.

BUT...in the years when I zoned out on late night talk shows have they all been like this, or was this one special?  There were NINE commercials (totaling nearly 5 minutes) between the George Clooney interview and the show's return and eight commercials (nearly as long) between the end of the Jeb Bush interview and the return to the show.  I didn't count the commercials in the other breaks, but I had the feeling that I was watching an hour of commercials sponsored by Colbert interviews.  I'm thinking that if I decide to watch Colbert for awhile to see if I like the show, I will just record it and zip thru the commercials, rather than watching live.

It's like going to the movies (which I also rarely do) and watching 20 minutes or so of previews before the actual feature film that you have come to see.

And while I'm complaining about commercials, I hate two other things--first those "funny" mini-movie commercials that run across the bottom of the TV screen about upcoming shows, which are not only distracting, but sometimes cover up something on the current show that you want to see.  And the new thing on the internet where you click on a link to read an article and before you read the article you must watch a commercial and then as you are reading the article, a video suddenly starts playing in the right hand column and you have to search to find out where to turn it off.  It's all very annoying and has at least saved me money because I wouldn't buy any of those products that annoy me so much, whether I liked them or not.

And then there is Kentucky, the "united we stand, divided we fall" state whose state dance is, appropriately, "clogging."

Along with Rachel Maddow, I will not name the County Clerk who has been in all the news because she is getting enough personal publicity everywhere else, but it's been great media fun.  Her checkered past, her latter day holier than thou stance.  What people forget in all the hype, is that it was never an "attack on Christianity" which Mike Huckabee, in wonderful campaign photo ops tries to promote.  This is a woman who took an oath to carry out all legal transactions of her business.  Like it or not, marriage is a legal right of all American citizens, gay and straight.  She took it upon herself to ignore the law and that got her jailed.

As someone pointed out, she put her hand on the bible and swore to upload the constitution, not put her hand on the constitution and swore to uphold the bible.

True, the Kentucky clerk had no reason to believe that her duties would eventually disagree with her religious beliefs, but if she feels that strongly about her beliefs, the answer is not to ignore the law of the land, but to make a big show about resigning her position.

The sight of sanctimonious Huckabee supporting her stand against a law with which he also disagrees is stomach turning.  Have we become a country where the law is irrelevant?  If you don't agree with a law, just ignore it and sue anyone who tries to hold you accountable for it?

If you are Muslim, don't become a flight attendant and then refuse to serve alcohol because it's against your religion (another case of religious freedom currently in the courts).

I thought we were a country of checks and balances, where we had a judiciary to legislate the legality of issues.  When they make a decision with which one side disagrees there are claims of "legislating from the bench."  If the court had upheld all those challenges to Obamacare, you can be certain nobody would be crying foul, but there would have been cheering that the Supremes saw things the right way.

The Rapture

Quote from George Takei:  "Well this is a bit of a circus. So let us be clear: This woman is no hero to be celebrated. She broke her oath to uphold the Constitution and defied a court order so she could deny government services to couples who are legally entitled to be married. She is entitled to hold her religious beliefs, but not to impose those beliefs on others. If she had denied marriage certificates to an interracial couple, would people cheer her? Would presidential candidates flock to her side? In our society, we obey civil laws, not religious ones. To suggest otherwise is, simply put, entirely un-American."