Sunday Potpourri

I spend a lot of time criticizing the President, and all too little time thinking about how we made such an utter mistake in electing him. I had a brief moment of how it happened last night. For some odd reason, NBC has decided to resurrect a show called "Will and Grace" from its graveyard of past shows. Here is a description of the show I pulled from the Google:

"In the original eight-season run of this groundbreaking sitcom, best friends Will, a meticulous corporate lawyer, and Grace, a neurotic interior decorator, share a New York apartment after Grace leaves her fiancé at the altar. Will and Grace, along with their pals Karen, an outspoken socialite, and Jack, a free-spirited actor, face the highs and lows of life in Manhattan together. From sex, dating and divorce to cutting cultural commentary, nothing's off limits -- and all is fair game -- in this Emmy-winning comedy."

The show went off the air 12 years ago, without my ever having watched a minute of it. NBC has brought it back this year, and The Kitten seems to enjoy it, which means I sometimes watch it alongside.  Last night's episode featured a situation in which the above mentioned "free-spirited actor" Jack (in reality, about as stereotyped a gay character as one could imagine) was confronted with his 10 year old never-before-met grandson. The boy's father--Jack's son--was the product of a sperm donation, and Jack and his son were estranged.

The point of this whole thing is that the boy believed he was gay, and his parents (stereotyped Texans) were taking him to a deprogramming camp of some sort--in which the two main camp counselors were played by well-known lesbian and gay B-listers dutifully repressing their natures and lampooning/caricaturing the very notion of such a camp.

Now--here's the part you really need to pay attention to--I don't have an opinion to share with you about the notion of a camp that parents would send their kids to in order to convince them that they were not gay. I'm not going to argue with anyone about whether that kind of camp is "right" or whether homosexuality is "wrong". That's not what this blog post is about.

It is about the manner in which the popular culture portrayed the people who for some odd reason, do not celebrate the gay lifestyle. They were benighted druids, with the only point at which the boy's father was portrayed positively was when he rejected his wife's rejection of their son's (and the boy's grandfather's) homosexuality. One could not be fully human until one put away the notion that homosexuality was wrong.

The thing is, LOTS of people think homosexuality is wrong. They pay taxes. They have jobs. They send their kids to school. And they are mercilessly lampooned in the popular culture.

There's news this morning of Saturday Night Live doing a bit last night on Judge Roy Moore--who deserves everything he's getting. Take the easy shot at the culturally deprived target--but leave Harvey Weinstein alone? Where has that bit been?

It seems to me that there part of what we've seen politically is the back-lash to what we've seen culturally. I'm clearly not the first to make this point, but it cannot be made enough. Until Trump--the GOP had a HAMMERLOCK on politics in this country and the left had a hammerlock on the culture. Trump's voters got tired of how they're treated in pop culture (and presumably, much of the time in this blog), and they acted out. So now we have Trump, and the right will now begin to lose even the political arguments.

So--while I am foursquare of the opinion that Trump voters made a tantrum-induced mistake that will ultimately deprive them of the very things they sought, every now and then I get a glimpse of what brought on the tantrum.

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In other news, the UVA football team stunk up the field in Louisville, and fact powerful Miami next week. Not getting any easier.

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One of the charms of living on Maryland's Eastern Shore is the annual Easton Waterfowl Festival--right here in my hometown. This is a great event--art, music, food etc--and my favorite feature--exhibitions of hunting dog prowess. I have two black labs who are the best most loving dogs in the world. But they are horribly trained. I see these people walking with their calm and lovely labs down the street at Waterfowl, and I am instantly envious. They I go watch the retriever exhibition, and my heart breaks, as my two just don't seem to have that gene.  Anyway, it was a great day.

A Waterfowl Festival Street Scene