A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Map showing active cases of COVID-19 throughout the world as of 6:33 AM Eastern Daylight Time. Credit: Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU). An open message to my conservative friends (those who will listen to reason, anyway): The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has hit our shores. As of this morning, there are 4,661 confirmed cases in the United States. 85 persons have died; 17 have recovered. The others are still sick. And, as more tests become available to healthcare workers, the number of COVID-19 patients will increase exponentially. So will the deaths. This is not alarmism; this is the reality of how viral diseases spread. I don't make it a habit of visiting my Trump-supporting friends' social media pages, but (at least on Facebook) my newsfeed often shows me posts from my conservative friends' timelines and comments from posts. The least offensive and relatively harmless posts are ones that are of a religious ...

Screenshot of a COVID-19 tracking map based on figures collected by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSCE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) I don't have any patience for fools. Especially fools who tend to see everything in terms of "conservatives vs. liberals," specifically when those folks tend to support that most foolish of Presidents, Donald Trump. As you are no doubt aware, the world is in the midst of a coronavirus pandemic that began in Wuhan, China late last year (hence its label COVID-19) and, thanks to the smaller-world effects of jet travel, global trade, and cruise ship tourism (among other factors) has spread to the rest of good ol' Planet Earth. Because it's a novel virus, like SARS was in the early 21st Century, so far there is no vaccine or quick-remedy medicine. Unlike Stephen King's fictional "Captain Trips" superflu from his 1978 novel  The Stand, COVID-19 doesn't have a 99.9% mortality rate that wil...

You see these angry white Southerners who were overwhelmingly Democratic Party members in 1957? They later became Republicans, and their children more than likely grew up to be Trump voters.  What do liberals want from conservatives? I can’t speak for all liberals. That would be pretentious and silly on my part. I can, however, speak for myself. So, this is my wish list regarding what I’d like from people who self-identify as “conservatives.” Cease your blind support of Donald J. Trump and toss him into the dustbin of history Stop treating Americans who are not conservatives as if we were (a) enemies of the United States and (b) aliens who do not deserve the demonym “American” Stop pretending that the Republican Party did not have a “Southern Strategy” in the Sixties to woo disenchanted Southern Democrats who were pissed off at the Democratic Party’s liberal wing’s embrace of the Civil Rights movement Stop repeating the lie that the Ku Klux Klan is not presently dom...

Photo Credit: Pixabay This question was originally asked by conservative memberTrevor Hamlen on Quora as: Since President Trump was a lifelong Democrat before running for president and he polished his interpersonal skills during his formative years, would the Democrats take ownership for the very behaviors they claim him to possess? My reply:  Oh, boy. It is really sad to see just how ill-informed you must be about Donald Trump, based on the wording of your question. So many distortions, so many mistaken conclusions. So, as a public service, I’ll try to educate you on the realities of Donald Trump’s political affiliation and how he changes parties to suit his whims. Let’s get started, shall we? First of all, Donald J. Trump has  never been  a “lifelong” member of the Democratic Party. In the mid-1980s, for instance, Trump registered as a Republican voter with the Department of Elections in Manhattan. He remained a Republican until 1999 when he registered a...

On Quora, N.J. Aubin asks: Why do people pretend The Handmaid’s Tale is about white men when it perfectly mirrors Islam? My reply:  Let me turn this around and put this in its proper perspective, okay? Why do white men who also identify as Christians pretend that  The Handmaid’s Tale  is about Islam when it’s perfectly clear what Margaret Atwood’s authorial intent is? First off, if Margaret Atwood had wished to tell her dystopian novel about a near-future America where the government was annihilated and a particularly strict branch of Islam had declared an Islamic Caliphate and renamed Washington, DC into New Al-Andalus, she would have. But she did not. She wrote about the creation of a radical Christian nation governed by white Christian males where men are at the top of the power structure, and women are either their powerful but sterile helpmates and others - the handmaidens - are there to be used to breed future citizens of the Republic of Gilead. Lo...

On Quora, a member who identifies as a middle-school student and "an outspoken conservative and Christian girl" asks: Why do liberals never admit when they're wrong? I replied: Funny. I seem to remember at least several instances of liberals admitting they made mistakes and even apologize for them. When Al Franken was a Senator from Minnesota, he was accused of improper behavior by model and entertainer Leeann Tweeden (now a conservative talk radio host) who worked in the entertainment industry when Franken was still a comedian and humor writer. The behavior did not occur when Franken was in the Senate; it allegedly happened when he and his accuser were on a USO tour in 2006. (Tweeden accused Franken of two things: improper kissing while rehearsing for a skit, and mimicking the improper touching of her breasts while posing for a photograph.) Photo Credit: NBC News In the interest of fairness, let’s look at why Tweeden’s claim of impropriety on the pa...

Photo Credit: Pixabay Why do some people say Mr. Trump instead of President Trump? In everyday usage, or in journalistic reporting/editorial writing? Since I studied journalism and mass communications in high school  and  college, I’ll start with how mass media refers to presidents and foreign leaders. Although newspaper and news magazines’ stylebooks allow for local variations when dealing with honorifics and titles (the  New York Times  usually places honorifics such as Mr., Mrs., or Ms. before a person’s last name upon second reference), the general style rule is: Use a government official’s title and complete name on first reference, e.g. “President Donald Trump.” After that, use the person’s last name only, e.g. “When Trump was asked about the issue, he said, ‘Fake news!’” In print media, page space is like real estate: a valuable commodity that is measured in column inches. Newspapers especially have only so much space on a page, and there is a...

On the question-and-answer site Quora, Trump supporter Lauren Davis asks: Why do Democrats hate when people support our president? Don’t they know they make our country look bad? My reply:  Before I give you a proper answer, let me ask you this: Do Trump supporters see the hypocrisy in asking questions such as  Why do Democrats hate when people support our president? Don’t they know they make our country look bad ,  when many of them not only disrespected the previous President between 2008 and 2017 but depict Democratic Party politicians and voters as traitors, “socialists,” and overall evil destroyers of the United States? See, one of the great tragedies about our representative style of democracy is that it has gradually devolved into a vitriolic team sport. A sport, dare I say, where it is a zero-sum game of “my team is better, so yours is for losers.” Partisan rivalry in America, of course, is nothing new. George Washington did not like the par...

On Quora, Trump supporter Dan Lauffer asks: Why does the Left hate Trump and Christians love him? I hate insincere, loaded questions, especially those written by Trump-supporting individuals who are also self-described Christians, but I’ll try to explain this anyway. First of all, it’s not just “the left” that dislikes Donald John Trump. There are many millions of people - not just in the United States, but also around the world - who find Trump distasteful in every way possible. And it's not just liberals that don't like Trump; quite a few conservatives, among them columnist George F. Will, have left the Republican Party due to its embrace of "Don the Con."  From his aggressive “I’m from Queens, New York” mien, his constant bragging, his dishonesty, his pandering to his “base,” his total disregard for diplomacy, his hateful attitudes toward minorities, and his admiration for authoritarian leaders such as Vladimir Putin, Kim Jung Un, Jair Bolsonaro, and Rodri...

On Quora, Tyler Hoffman asked recently: What do you think about Trump’s promise to eradicate AIDS if he is re-elected? My reply: What do I think about President Donald Trump’s hyperbolic promises to eradicate AIDS and cancer  if  he is re-elected? I think it’s a typical Trump hokum. Malarkey. Bullshit. Nonsense. It’s on par with “We will build a great, beautiful wall on the southern border, and Mexico will pay for it.” It’s on par with Trump’s long-lived insistence that Barack Obama was not a U.S. citizen. It’s on par with  “If and when the Vatican is attacked, the pope would only wish and have prayed that Donald Trump would have been elected president.” It’s on par with his claim that on September 11, 2001, Trump  personally  witnessed “thousands of Muslims” in New Jersey celebrate as the Twin Towers burned and fell across the river in Manhattan. In other words, I think he’s no better than a snake oil salesman trying to peddle his w...

On Quora, our old friend "Anonymous" asks: What does Queen Elizabeth think of President Trump? This is my reply to "Anonymous," complete with links to actual sources and the conservative meme in question.  Queen Elizabeth II is a dignified woman, a head of state (strictly ceremonial) not only of the United Kingdom but also of several other nations that are members of the Commonwealth of Nations, including Australia, Canada, the Bahamas, and New Zealand. She has been on the throne, metaphorically speaking, for slightly over 67 years, the longest reign of a British monarch in history. And although she’s 93, she’s in excellent health and will probably be around for a few years more, setting a record for regal longevity that will be hard to break. Because the Queen is not an absolute monarch who issues commands to her ministers (save strictly ceremonial ones on certain occasions) or is directly involved in government operations, Elizabeth is not someone who giv...