Posts Tagged ‘Da Magnificent Seven’

Big Media Want You Scared

Posted: April 7, 2020 by julietteochieng in News/opinion
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by baldilocks

I’m okay. No pestilence; nor am I aware of any family member or friend who has it. I do keep a very long prayer list consisting of names, however.

I just want to point out something.

Yesterday, there was this.

CBS News has picked up the story of the woman who claims her hospital gave her no protection to take care of COVID-19 patients.

But CBS News apparently didn’t check the story because, as they say, it was too good to check.

Imaris Vera, part-time nurse and part-time Instagram model, claims she quit her job at a Chicago area hospital – still unnamed – because the hospital didn’t provide nurses with proper equipment around COVID-19 patients.

All we’ve heard is howls from governors and CDC officials for us not to take away gear from first responders. Save the PPE and the N-95 masks for the pros. So at first blush, the story looked like it might be true.

Then it started crumbling.

And, today, there was this.

President Donald Trump reportedly owns a stake in a company that produces hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malaria drug he has repeatedly touted as a coronavirus treatment even though his experts say there’s no strong evidence it works.

Trump “has a small personal financial interest” in Sanofi, the French drugmaker that makes Plaquenil, the brand-name version of hydroxychloroquine, The New York Times reported Monday.

In addition, Sanofi’s largest shareholders include a mutual fund company run by major Republican donor Ken Fisher, the paper said. Trump’s three family trusts, as of last year, each had investments in a mutual fund whose largest holding was Sanofi, according to the Times.

Mike Cernovich presented the financial documents and figured out that President Trump’s stake in Sanofi is worth no more than $435. And, considering that Sanofi hasn’t owned the patent for Panequil (hydroxychloroquine’s brand name) since 1995, there are likely dozens of generic versions of the drug, since it is used to treat several conditions: rheumatoid arthritis, malaria, lupus, etc.

But we know what media’s intended implication is: that President Trump is pushing hydroxychloroquine as a cure for the Wuhan virus in order to enrich himself.

Besides both  being distortions of reality by Big Media entities, these two vignettes are small parts of an overarching goal: to keep fear and hopelessness stoked in the collective psyche of the American public.

It’s like this. If the public believes that the president is just in it for himself and there is in actuality no pharmaceutical cure, they will be willing to accept a more radical cure — like changing presidents.

Big Media will keep trying. And that’s why the president’s daily Wuhan virus press briefings are so important.

And it’s why several Big Media entities hate these briefings and refuse to cover them.

Keep an eye on all of them, especially now that most of you have the time to do it.

Juliette Akinyi Ochieng has been blogging since 2003 as baldilocks. Her older blog is here.  She published her first novel, Tale of the Tigers: Love is Not a Game in 2012.

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Review: Season Three of Ozark

Posted: April 5, 2020 by John Ruberry in culture, entertainment, media
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By John Ruberry

Late last month Season Three of Ozark began streaming on Netflix. The center point of the story is the Bryde family, father Marty (Jason Bateman), a former Chicago financial planner, mother Wendy (Laura Linney), a onetime Illinois Democrat political operative, and their children, teens Charlotte (Sofia Hublitz), and Jonah (Skylar Gaertner).

In the first season Marty, talks his way out of assassination by convincing his killers that he can be of great use to his Mexican drug cartel client, who turns out to be Omar Navarro (Felix Solis), by laundering even more money for him in the Lake of the Ozarks region of southern Missouri. He does that of course for self-survival, but also for his family.

If you haven’t seen Ozark yet the following paragraph and the trailer contains minor spoilers.

But being the money guy–with bloody hands–is a strain for the other Byrdes, even though Wendy is for the most part a willing participant as the family moves up from laundering cash though a failing restaurant, then a fledgling church, and finally a casino boat, which is how the second season ends–the final shot is a sepia still of the Byrdes–with none of them smiling–at the grand opening. 

Warning: “F bomb” in the trailer.

The second season introduced the cartel’s lawyer, the cold-blooded Helen Pierce (Janet McTeer), another Chicagoan. Like the Byrdes, she is facing a challenge by balancing her criminality with her family, specifically her teen daughter Erin (Madison Thompson). Helen and Erin in Season Three move to the Ozarks for the summer.

The primary new character in the third season is Wendy’s troubled younger brother Ben Davis (Tom Pelphrey), who offers the best performance so far in Ozark in an Emmy-worthy performance. Laura Linney is superb again too.

Meanwhile the Navarros are at war with another cartel. And as with most of the major European wars since the 17th century, the battles cannot stay contained in a tight geographic area. The cartels are always “all in” in their fights–and the title of the last episode of the third season is “All In.”

The FBI, which is not shown in a favorable light throughout the series, remains hot on the heals of the Byrdes. Which means Marty and Wendy not only have to balance their money laundering and shell companies with the needs of Navarro along with the demands of parenthood, but they are also under the constant scrutiny of the FBI, this time led by an agent of better character than what we’ve seen before here, Maya Miller (Jessica Frances Dukes). 

One one more headache for the Byrdes is the Kansas City mob.

Of course there was criminality in the Ozarks before the arrival of the Tom and Daisy Buchanan of Missouri, Marty and Wendy, who as F. Scott Fitzgerald said of former in The Great Gatsby, “smashed up things and creatures.” Ruth Langmore (Julia Garner), the leader of that family’s small-time criminal family, is now an integral member of Bryde Family Enterprises. But the other homegrown female crime leader, Darlene Snell (Lisa Emery), an avowed enemy of the Brydes, revs up her operation after a respite.

This is the best Ozark season yet. The penultimate episode, “Fire Pink,” is the most powerful one and it contains an homage to the film noir classic The Killers, which starred Burt Lancaster. The 1964 remake, a thriller with John Cassavetes in the Lancaster role, is worth a look too. It was Ronald Reagan’s last dramatic film appearance. 

Ozark is rated TV-MA. It contains graphic violence, torture, obscene language, and nudity.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Candidate Cuomo

Posted: March 31, 2020 by chrisharper in Church doctrine
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The hashtag #PresidentCuomo has been trending on Twitter.

Musings about Cuomo as the Democrat nominee have come from everywhere on the left, including DaTimes columnist Maureen Dowd and MSNBC host Rachel Maddow.

If Democrats think Andrew Cuomo is the answer to their Joe Biden problem, think again!

The Trump ad campaign would start with Cuomo’s own words rolling on the screen:

“We’re not gonna make America great again. 

It was never that great. 

We have not reached greatness….”

Even an audience of Cuomo’s supporters booed when he said that in 2018.

But there’s more. Cuomo is an alleged Roman Catholic who supports late-term abortions, same-sex marriage, and divorce. That’s a troubling trifecta for religious conservatives throughout the land. 

But there’s even more.

Cuomo pushed for the NY State Act, which he described as the most stringent gun control law in the United States. 

The New York governor, who has spent nearly all his life in government, has opposed hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking and would stimulate the economy in Upstate New York. All you have to do is drive along the border of Pennsylvania, which fracking is allowed, and New York to see the difference in how much better the economy is south of the border. 

If the Democrats are thinking about appealing to Republicans, here’s Cuomo on what he considers “good” members of the GOP. 

“Their [Republicans’] problem is not me and the Democrats; their problem is themselves. Who are they? Are they these extreme conservatives who are right-to-life, pro-assault-weapon, anti-gay? Is that who they are? Because if that’s who they are and they’re the extreme conservatives, they have no place in the state of New York because that’s not who New Yorkers are.”

If you go to https://www.ontheissues.org/andrew_cuomo.htm, you’ll find a host of issues that would make Cuomo unpalatable for many Americans.

–Raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
–Expand Obama Care.
–Opposes school vouchers.
–Tax the wealthy.
–Expand trade with Cuba.
–Supports the Green New Deal.

If the Democrats want to dump Joe and go with Andrew, it’s like trading for a younger Bernie. And think about the possibility that his younger brother, Chris of CNN, might be the White House spokesman. That’s a sobering thought whatever your politics are!

Lockdown in Illinois goes from smiling faces to a preview of tyranny

Posted: March 29, 2020 by John Ruberry in business, culture, economy, News/opinion, politics
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Blogger running on a Cook County Forest Preserve trail earlier this month

By John Ruberry

Illinois is now in its eighth day of lockdown as part of Governor JB Pritzker’s shelter-in-place order because of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Life is anything but normal here.

There’s not much good to report.

On the other hand a few days ago I planned to compose a feel-good entry focusing on the the few good things to report on from where I live in Morton Grove, Illinois about coronavirus. But things quickly turned south. And now we just might have a preview of the damage an overreaching government that claims to be looking out for us can inflict.

I’m a runner–and I’ve not let the lockdown cut back on my hobby. (Oh, Peter Da Tech Guy has been begging me to write a running post for a while–here you go!) After all outdoor activity, including running, is allowed according to Pritzker’s shelter-in-place order, as long as I practice safe-distancing, which I do. During my runs through the Cook County Forest Preserve trails near my home, I’ve seen more people on the paths, including entire families, since the issue of the shelter-in-place order. When the coronavirus crisis fades away, some of those folks might pick up a new appreciation of nature and become physical fitness enthusiasts as well.

I’ve also seen more people smiling at me and waving during my runts. And I reciprocate.

That was through Wednesday.

In Chicago in the early part of last week, particularly on the lakefront, the parks and paths were packed with runners, walkers, and cyclists. There were picnics and barbecues and basketball games. Which caused Chicago’s mayor, Lori Lightfoot, to freak out.

“You cannot go on long bike rides,” the Democrat scolded. “Playgrounds are shut down. You must abide by the order. Outside, is for a brief respite, not for 5Ks. I can’t emphasize enough that we abide the rules.”

“If we have to … we will be forced to shut down parks and the entire lakefront,” the mayor said that day.

And so she did. In a condescending press conference the following day, Mayor Tenderfoot announced, while upping her warning that training for marathons was also not allowed on the lakefront during the lockdown, that all Chicago parks along the lakefront, along with the 606 Trail on the North Side, were closed and would be barricaded. Violators of Lightfoot’s order face a citation and a $500 fine.

Okay, I get it. COVID-19 can be deadly. Playing close contact sports such as basketball is stupid. But cooping people up in home will be psychologically demanding. And what will happen if the internet in Chicago slows down to a trickle because of an overwhelming demand in residential areas?

Will spouse abuse instances spike? And child abuse?

And it’s not just a Chicago issue in Illinois. At a large park in Skokie, the town just east of me, a friend of my daughter’s was playing tennis with her boyfriend. Someone living next to the park called the police, they them to told stop playing and leave. The cops also cleared out the rest of park. There were no gatherings there of more than ten people. Just a few people here and there, I was told.

On Friday Lightfoot encouraged people to call the non-emergency 311 line to inform on businesses that are deemed non-essential that remain open. Employees can rat out their bosses. Violators face up to a $10,000 fine.

What we are witnessing in Chicago is a preview of life under a Green New Deal tyranny-of-the-enlightened-few led by know-it-alls like Lightfoot. Because of “climate change,” the city’s lakefront could be closed for weeks during the summer. After all, many people drive to the lakefront parks and the adjoining neighborhoods.

On a national basis industries such as travel could be altered and possibly destroyed. Travel by jet spread the virus. So let’s shrink the airline industry, which produces greenhouse gases. What about the jobless pilots, machinists, and the flight attendants? Force them to attend a green jobs training program doubling as a re-education camp.

If the government goes after jet travel will the automotive industry be next? What about recreational boating? Why not shutter restaurants that serve food deemed as unhealthy? Who hasn’t heard obesity called an epidemic?

Does a family of four really need a huge house? Do you really need to take an out-of-state vacation?

Presumably in a Green New Deal America the running trails near my home will still be open and I can train for a marathon if I choose. But I’ll expect to see fewer smiling faces there.

Yes, I’m taking COVID-19 seriously. I’m washing my hands and drowning them in hand-sanitizer. I’m keeping safe distances.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

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